(June 19, 2009) by Gardiner Harris

Nestlé USA recalled its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough Friday after health officials linked the dough to infections from the bacteria E. coli in as many as 66 people in 28 states.

The Food and Drug Administration advised consumers to throw out any Nestlé refrigerated cookie dough they may have. Although cooking may kill the bacteria, handling the raw dough could spread the contaminant to hands and cooking surfaces.

Nestlé is telling consumers to return cookie and brownie dough products to grocers for a full refund.

Health officials alerted the company Wednesday evening that the cookie dough was a prime suspect.

“Based on that information, we made the decision to proactively withdraw the product,” said Laurie MacDonald, a Nestlé spokeswoman. Ms. MacDonald added that Nestlé’s cookie dough products should never be eaten raw.

Advocates said the recall should be a spur to action in Congress on legislation to overhaul the food safety system.

“If there was ever any doubt that we’ve reached a crisis, this should provide the proof,” said Sarah Klein, a staff lawyer at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bipartisan measure Wednesday that would give the Food and Drug Administration more money and authority to inspect food facilities and to force contaminated ingredients off the market. Food manufacturers would have to write and carry out safety plans, paying an annual registration fee to help finance enforcement.

The House is expected to take up the measure this summer, although a companion bill in the Senate is still in committee.

Dr. Timothy F. Jones, Tennessee’s state epidemiologist, said the cookie dough recall demonstrated how difficult it had become to ensure the safety of the nation’s food supply.

E. coli O157, the strain found in the Nestlé dough, is a particularly dangerous pathogen normally linked with contaminated meat. It causes abdominal cramping, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. Most adults recover within a week, but the disease can lead to serious kidney damage and death.

“We’re all having trouble figuring out how E. coli O157 gets in cookie dough,” Dr. Jones said. “This wasn’t on anybody’s radar screen.”

Nestlé has a reputation for strict food safety measures. For example, employees of the Peanut Corporation of America, the source of a nationwide contamination scare in January, said in interviews that Nestlé sent an inspector to its plant and found so many safety problems that the company refused to buy from Peanut Corporation. Many other large food buyers were not so thorough.

Public health officials have been investigating the E. coli outbreak since March. Twenty-five people have been hospitalized so far, including seven who suffered a severe complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome. No one has died.

There is always uncertainty in these investigations, in which health workers ask those who have been sickened to describe in detail the foods they have recently consumed. In one example, officials first believed that tomatoes were the cause of a salmonella outbreak only to discover later that it was linked with jalapeño peppers.

Michael Herndon, an F.D.A. spokesman, said officials were confident that Nestlé’s cookie dough was the cause of the latest outbreak.

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