I have to admit, I love raw cookie dough from time to time. When my kids and I bake cookies, I even let them lick the spoon. Despite the warnings on packages encouraging us not to do it, many of us still do.
In 2009, Linda Rivera took a few bites of raw Nestle Cookie Dough. Unfortunately the batch she ate from was contaminated with E.Coli and later recalled by the company. It was too late. The E. Coli caused her body to go in to septic shock and her kidneys stopped functioning. As time went on her other organs began shutting down as well. She fought hard for 4 years, but eventually succumbed to the damage in July of 2013.
Her son, Richard Simpson recently attended an FDA hearing on food production regulations while recounting his mother’s illness.
“There were moments of hope – and of despair,” Simpson said, according to Fox News. “She fought very hard. We knew she didn’t want to give up.”
“Eventually her body just couldn’t take it,” said Bill Marler, Rivera’s friend and attorney who handled her case against Nestle.
Marler mentioned that Linda Rivera was “probably the most severely injured E. coli victim I have ever seen.”
Simpson is fighting for better food safety regulations in hopes of this never happening to another family again.
What are your thoughts? Should a company be liable for a customer’s illness if they don’t heed the label warnings?
