I didn’t bother blogging about the Nestlé cookie dough outbreak last week because there wasn’t anything about the story I found of great interest. At this point, you sort of expect E. Coli to be showing up in all sorts of processed foods.
But now the Wall Street Journal [subscription required] is writing that Nestlé was withholding information from the government:
The Nestlé USA plant at the center of a federal probe into an E. coli outbreak involving cookie dough refused to give inspectors access to pest-control records, environmental-testing programs and other information, according to newly released inspection reports covering the past five years…
A year earlier, officials at the Nestlé plant presented another FDA inspector with a list of things it wouldn’t do. “Among these are the refusal to review the firm’s consumer complaint file, refusal to permit photography, refusal to sign affidavits or receipts and refusal to provide specific information on interstate commerce,” the inspector wrote.
The crazy thing is that Nestlé apparently didn’t break any laws: they aren’t legally obligated to hand over all the information they have that touches on food safety.
Additionally, Food Poison Journal published a long piece today about the regulatory loopholes that existed at the plant.
