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E. coli Cookie Dough: "Old Bacteria In A New Place"

By PritzkerLaw

 Two experienced microbiologists who work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say they were as surprised as anyone to find E. coli O157:H7 in Nestle cookie dough this year.

Writing in a new Public Health Matters blog for the CDC, Gerry Gomez and Mike Humphrys said the lab work they did at the CDC was examined in conjunction with  similar work by 13 public health laboratories around the country. Together, they tested cookie dough from 164 different packages.

"We found that the chocolate chip cookie dough that sick people had eaten didn't come from only one batch,'' the two scientists wrote. "We found it was produced over several months.''

The outbreak itself peaked during May and June. By the end of July, according to a CDC summary, there were 80 confirmed illnesses in 31 states. Thirty-five of the victims received hospital treatment and 10 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) -- a disease that attacks a person's red blood cells and causes serious illness including kidney failure, strokes, heart problems and other damage. HUS also is the leading cause of E. coli deaths, most often affecting young children, the elderly or others who have weakened immune systems.

Like everyone else, including the national food safety lawyers at Pritzker Olsen attorneys who represent victims of E. coli poisoning, Gomez and Humphrys wrote that they are far more accustomed to seeing E. coli outbreaks caused by contaminated and undercooked hamburger or by unpasteurized apple juice.

They also noted that they isolated  E. coli O157:H7 bacteria from the cookie dough by making a slurry from the dough and dropping ultra tiny magnetic beads into the slurry. If there was going to be any E. coli bacteria, it would attach to the beads, which were only 5 percent as wide as a human hair.

From there, a bigger magnet was used to pull out the beads.... giving the scientists a better chance of isolating E. coli.

"Even experienced microbiologists who have 'seen it all' can be surprised and challenged by an old bacteria turning up in a new place,'' the  experts wrote. 

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on September 09, 2009 (boomark / email).