Recently, Nestle USA voluntarily recalled its prepackaged, refrigerated cookie dough products after they had been linked to E. coli infections across twenty-eight states. Nestle is fully cooperating with FDA and CDC efforts to inform people of the dangers of eating this and other raw foods intended to be cooked before consumption.
ACSH staffers are glad to see this being addressed, and we view it as an unfortunate example of occasional contamination that no degree of oversight could prevent every time.
The food safety legislation that Congress is considering would not have prevented this, says ACSH's Jeff Stier. The corporation is withdrawing the product on its own. It goes to show you that even a big company that has the best resources available to track and recall products can never ensure 100 percent safety of their food. If this was made in China, there d be an uproar calling for more regulation, but it is likely that the contamination came from the United States. Country of origin labeling wouldn t help. These things happen. Any system will have some failure.
