What took them so long to sue Denny's?Final CDC update links 80 to one E. coli strain

Final CDC update links 80 to one E. coli strain

8/12/2009-Eighty people from 31 states have been infected with a particular strain of Escherichia coli O157:H7, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported last week in its final update on the illness outbreak linked to consuming raw cookie dough.

The outbreak prompted Nestlé to voluntarily recall 3.6 million packages of refrigerated cookie dough earlier this summer. On June 29, 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that a culture of a sample of the recalled Nestlé Toll House cookie dough yielded E. coli O157:H7, but further testing showed it was not the outbreak strain.

According to the CDC update, however, a study of consumers who had become ill showed that most reported eating refrigerated, prepackaged Nestlé Toll House cookie dough products raw.

Federal investigators who scrutinized Nestlé’s Danville, Va., plant where the refrigerated cookie dough is produced did not detect the E. coli O157:H7 pathogen inside the factory or on the equipment. Nestlé refrigerated cookie dough products are slated to return to retail shelves this month bearing a special “New Batch” logo on the package to indicate that the product is freshly produced—and not part of the recall.