Word: coliforms
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...Maspeth, Queens, "an adulterated food product." According to Brooklyn District Attorney Eugene Gold, that means Good Humor sold millions of Wildberry Whammy, X-5 Jetstar Grape, Orange Push-Up and Chocolate Fudge Cake cones, bars and other ice cream confections containing far more than the legally allowable quantity of coliform bacteria. The bacteria are commonly found in drinking water and dairy products; in small amounts they are nontoxic, but large quantities of them can cause illness. Gold says that bacteria-laden Good Humors were sold throughout the Eastern seaboard and as far west as Kansas...
According to D.A. Gold, the investigation began last November when a "disgruntled employee" of the plant rang the bell on Good Humor. Sleuths looked into the matter, but, says Gold, the company began destroying records of coliform counts, and the plant was closed on April 28, less than two weeks after Gold subpoenaed its papers. Attorney St. Clair maintains that it was shut for economic reasons: "It was kind of out of date." Good Humor now supplies its markets from plants in Chicago and Baltimore...
...says Gold, 4,000 to 5,000 documents containing coliform counts on batches of ice cream were destroyed. Investigators nonetheless maintain that they discovered the plant kept two sets of quality-control records: a false one to show state inspectors and an elaborately coded secret set containing true bacteria counts for the company's own use. The secret books showed coliform counts on some batches of ice cream 200 times as high as the law allows. Worse, many other batches were labeled TNTC -meaning that the bacteria were Too Numerous To Count...
...Breeding Grounds. Doctors disagree on the answer. The common technique for measuring pollution is counting the number of coliform, or intestinal bacteria in samples of water. These organisms are easily detected. Although they are usually harmless, they often coexist with more menacing microorganisms and viruses that cannot be discovered without more extensive testing. Hence the count provides a useful index of pollution. Yet levels that are regarded as safe by some public officials are rejected as dangerous by others...
...York City, for example, allows swimming when the coliform count is as high as 2,400 organisms per 100 milliliters, while neighboring Nassau County on Long Island bans bathers when the count reaches only 240 per 100 mls. The Federal Government and the military feel, for their part, that 1,000 per 100 mls. is a safe limit...