States involved in the outbreak include Iowa (one case), Illinois (one), Kansas (one), Minnesota (five), North Carolina (one), Nebraska (one), New Jersey (one), South Dakota (one) and Wisconsin (one).
Information was available for 12 of the 13 affected individuals. Nine of those people reported eating at a national restaurant chain before falling ill — eight of them ate a dessert pizza, and the ninth ate bread sticks made from the same dough.
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In response, the restaurant stopped using the dough mix on Feb. 4, 2016. The CDC suspects some of the dough may have been undercooked, thus passing on E. coli.
“Flour is a raw agricultural product and does not undergo processing to kill bacteria and other pathogens, so it is not sterile,” according to the CDC report. “This outbreak serves as a reminder that consumers, industry and government should consider that flour…might be contaminated with pathogens and, when consumed raw or undercooked, might pose a risk to human health.”
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