Cookie Crazies

Tampering with a symbol

The Girl Scout cookie is more than a popular treat. Over nearly a half-century it has become not just an annual door-to-door institution but also a symbol of the wholesome qualities of American childhood. A perfect target, in short, for twisted pranksters.

In McDonough, Ga., nine-year-old Sean Green pierced his gums with an inch-long sewing needle buried in one of the Girl Scouts’ Caramel Delights. A Chatham, Va., girl punctured her lip when she bit into a cookie containing a pin. At least 17 states, ranging from Maine to California, filed more than 80 reports of cookies contaminated with pins, needles and other metal objects. The FBI quickly joined the Food and Drug Administration in a nationwide investigation of the cookie tampering.

After careful inspection of all eight plants that produce Girl Scout cookies, the FDA concluded that whatever contamination might have occurred was not related to the manufacturing process. Each plant passes the sealed final product through metal detectors to ensure that no foreign objects have been lodged in the cookies. A federal product-tampering law was enacted after Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide killed seven Chicago-area people in 1982. The maximum penalty for violators is life imprisonment and a fine of $100,000.

While the Girl Scout cookie incidents have not inspired the type of national scare caused by the Tylenol deaths, several communities have taken precautionary action. The Maine state agriculture department has asked Girl Scout officials to postpone further sales and deliveries of cookies until a warning sheet can be printed and distributed with the packages. In the St. Louis area, where eight cases of tampering have been confirmed, the Girl Scouts have offered refunds on roughly 1.5 million boxes that have already been delivered and sold for $2.6 million. The organization’s St. Louis council, the largest in the U.S., will lose more than $1 million, a third of its budget, according to Joan Newman, vice president of finance. Newman, however, is optimistic about the future of Girl Scout cookies. “It’s an institution,” she says, adding, “We are going to come right back next year. Tylenol came back.”