They had one sweet job. Maureen Zuccarini, Donna Magliaro and Stefanie Bonfiglio sampled flavors and sweeteners that go into products like Trident gum, Swedish fish and Certs breath mints, making $10 an hour by working their taste buds.

In mid-March, while they were still in training, their class sampled an experimental high-intensity sweetener that Cadbury hoped would be the next big thing in flavor.

Instead, it left them with oral lesions and chemical burns that they say are affecting their ability to taste normally and eat certain foods without a burning sensation.Cadbury's handling of the situation and refusal to tell them what they were given has left them with such a bitter taste that the three are suing the confectionery giant over their injuries.

"I know they did something bad to us," said Magliaro, of Denville. "I want to know what they gave me."



Montville attorney Robyne LaGrotta filed three lawsuits in Superior Court in Morristown against Cadbury and Spherion Atlantic Enterprises LLC, a staffing company that hired the three Morris County women to work at Cadbury's research facility in East Hanover. The lawsuits became public today.



Cadbury spokeswoman Katharine Beyer said the United Kingdom company, which has its U.S. headquarters in Parsippany, would not comment on pending litigation.

"We were so happy to get the job," Zuccarini said. More than 1,000 people had answered a newspaper ad to become taste-testers for a major confectionery company and only 12 were chosen, Zuccarini and Magliaro said in a telephone interview. When they found out the company was Cadbury, that was icing on the cake, Zuccarini said.

"I love the Swedish fish they make," Magliaro said. She said she felt honored to work for a company whose products are so well known.

The day they sampled the sweetener, they say Cadbury employee Maura Titone told them it was safe but not yet approved for use in the United States, according to the lawsuits. When Magliaro asked if previous testers had experienced reactions, Titone told her they'd had only minor ones and not to worry, her lawsuit said. Titone could not be reached for comment today.

Zuccarini, a Parsippany resident, was the first affected by the compound, LaGrotta said. On the second day of chewing a gum that contained it, she developed eight pustules on her tongue and had a reaction under her tongue and along her right lower cheek, the lawsuit said.

Magliaro said her initial reaction wasn't as severe as Zuccarini's, but that she later was assigned to taste an intense spearmint.

"My tongue was on fire," she said. Magliaro said Cadbury had her tasting again before a dentist that the company sent them to for their injuries had cleared them to resume work.

Magliaro said she was fired at the end of April when she started asking questions of her more experienced colleagues at a staff meeting about whether they had ever been asked to sign documents and take experimental compounds. Magliaro and Zuccarini believe the company gave the sweetener to the trainees because they didn't know procedure. They claim they were not given copies of forms they signed.

Zuccarini and Bonfiglio quit a week after Magliaro left. The three women had met on the job, they said.

"It's as if they weren't taking us seriously," Zuccarini said. She said she has a chronic metallic taste in her mouth and her tongue burns if she drinks carbonated beverages or tastes mint. "I don't know when it's going to stop."