Side Effect of E-Coli Tainted Nestle Cookie Dough – 200 Layoffs

In response to warnings made by the FDA that the product may be tainted with E-Coli bacteria, Nestle issued a voluntary recall of their Toll House Frozen cookie dough products last Wednesday.

The strain of E-Coli that caused the recall has the following symptoms:

E. coli O157:H7 causes abdominal cramping, vomiting and a diarrheal illness, often with bloody stools. Most healthy adults can recover completely within a week. Young children and the elderly are at highest risk for developing HUS, which can lead to serious kidney damage and even death.

But there’s one side effect that is affecting a lot more people than first anticipated. Nestle has had to temporarily lay off over 200 people who worked in the area of the factory where the cookie dough was made.

On Monday, Nestle spokeswoman Roz O’Hearn at the Danville, Virginia, facility where the company was churning out refrigerated cookie-dough products until last Thursday said:

“It’s likely that we’re going to have some temporary layoffs at that facility.
Some 550 people work at the factory, but only about half of them work on cookie dough. The rest work on Buitoni pasta and sauce in a separate facility at the plant.”