E coli Experts Probe Cookie Dough Plant
The Food and Drug Administration is working with Nestle USA to pinpoint the source of E. coli O157:H7 that has been found once again in Toll House cookie dough.
The company's cookie dough was linked last year to a nationwide E. coli outbreak that sickened 80 people in 31 states, including 35 who were hospitalized and 10 who developed life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen, which practices extensively in the area of HUS E coli litigation, represented victims of the outbreak.
On Monday, Nestle's improved detection system found the pathogen in two product samples before they left the factory in Danville, Virginia, The results were immediately reported to FDA. The plant is shut down for two weeks while Nestle converts to using heat-treated flour that will kill E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, Campylobacter and other harmful foodborne bacteria.
Nestle said there will be no recall of product associated with the latest findings because none of the contaminated dough left the plant
.
