Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [174]
2009: Nestlé’s Toll House Cookie Dough (E. coli O157:H7). This outbreak demonstrated the inadequacy of warning labels and the compelling need for preventive controls. Cookie dough is not supposed to be eaten raw; it is intended to be baked. Packages are labeled with warnings, usually along the lines of “Bake before enjoying” or, as Nestlé’s post-recall packages now say, “Do not consume raw cookie dough.” But let’s be honest: raw cookie dough is irresistibly delicious. A Consumer Reports survey found that 39 percent of respondents admitted to eating dough when they make cookies; surely this underestimates the true percentage.48
Companies know that customers eat raw dough. Nestlé said it took special precautions as a result, and investigators were able to identify only minor violations at the plant. Although they found E. coli O157:H7 in one dough sample, it was not the outbreak strain. Investigations linked cases of illness to eating the Nestlé dough, but “conclusions could not be made with regard to the root cause of the contamination.” The recall cost Nestlé more than $30 million.49
To people who became ill after eating raw cookie dough, unsolved mysteries and corporate costs hardly matter. Bill Marler, the lawyer mentioned earlier, describes another client: “I spent most of last week being supportive, but feeling helpless, as a client who ate E. coli O157:H7–tainted Nestlé Toll House Cookie Dough, may well be slowly dying after spending over 100 days in the hospital (still there), losing her large intestine and gall bladder, and spending weeks on dialysis. It is crazy that people think a foodborne illness is a ‘tummy ache.’ ”50
2009: Ground Beef (Antibiotic-Resistant Salmonella). Throughout the summer of 2009, Colorado health officials were dealing with cases of Salmonella infections caused by eating ground beef. The most serious were caused by a strain of Salmonella Newport highly resistant to a wide range of common antibiotics. Investigators traced the illnesses to ground beef produced by Beef Packers, Inc., a subsidiary of Cargill. The nearly 826,000-pound recall was especially complicated because the company repackaged the meat into small retail-size units. The USDA’s list of receiving retailers fills twenty-four pages.51
Beyond generic food safety, this incident raised concerns about additional public health issues: humane treatment of animals, the safety of school meals, and antibiotic resistance in food pathogens. A year earlier, USDA investigators had observed workers at this plant using cattle prods to render animals unconscious so they could be dragged into the slaughterhouse. Use of cattle prods is legal; dragging unconscious and potentially contaminated animals is not. Cargill said “the animals balked because there were too many auditors present that day.”52 Even if true, a statement like this is unlikely to reassure anyone that the meat is safe.
Beef Packers is a major supplier of meat to the USDA’s school lunch program. The recall covered meat sent to retailers, not schools. Investigative reporters for USA Today discovered that while the recall was in progress, the USDA bought 450,000 pounds of ground beef produced by Beef Packers during the dates covered by the recall and sent several lots to schools. The USDA knew that Beef Packers had a history of positive Salmonella tests, but did not disclose that information. An official told USA Today that if it did, it “would discourage companies from contracting to supply product for the National School Lunch Program and hamper our ability to provide safe and nutritious foods to American school children.53
As for antibiotic resistance: in this instance, the USDA was faced with a new possibility. Could the agency consider antibiotic-resistant Salmonella to be an adulterant, thereby making the meat subject to immediate recall? In August, an official