Cream puffs common link in illness outbreak
by Nick Delgado
Guam - Public Health has determined that at least 21 individuals who were treated and released at two hospitals suffered from symptoms related to foodborne illness. Division of Environmental Health Administrator Tom Nadeau says based on interviews, the individuals attended different functions and consumed a variety of items but the common link was the consumption of cream puffs from Celebrity Bakery.
Nadeau says samples of the pastry will be sent off-island and it is too premature to confirm if the cream puffs are the source of the foodborne illness.
Bakery owner Nelia Pono is anxious for the results as her staff have been making the local favorite for 20 years and the night before Thanksgiving, her staff prepared 1,500 cream puffs and sold more than a thousand. Pono added that her staff took some home and tested them and did not get sick.
If a batch was bad and it can be traced to her bakery, Pono says she will reimburse expenses incurred by the reported patients at the hospitals through her insurance company if and when its proven that a small portion of the cream puffs were somehow contaminated through the fault of the bakery.