McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers are responsible for making at least 104 people sick – and hospitalizing at least 34 – after an outbreak of E.coli was tied to onions served on the burgers, federal health officials said Wednesday.
Cases have been detected in 14 states, according to an update from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One person died in Colorado and four people have developed a potentially life-threatening complication of kidney disease.
At least 30 cases were reported in Colorado, followed by 19 in Montana, 13 in Nebraska, 10 in New Mexico, eight in Missouri and Utah, six in Wyoming, three in Kansas, two in Michigan and one each in Iowa, North Carolina. Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.
Illnesses were reported between September 12 and October 21. At least seven people who became ill said they ate McDonald’s food while traveling.
Chopped onions served on Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the outbreak, the CDC said. Taylor Farms, a California-based produce grower, recalled onions possibly linked to the outbreak. Tests by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have discovered a type E coli bacteria that produce a dangerous toxin in one sample of the onions, but it did not match the strain that made people sick, officials reported.
McDonald’s said on Oct. 25 that onions from its Taylor Farms plant in Colorado have been distributed to about 900 restaurants in Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming and parts of other states in the region.
The company said it had also decided to stop sourcing onions from the factory indefinitely.
McDonald’s removed quarter pounder burgers from the menu during the early days of the outbreak at locations in Colorado, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming and in parts of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma. These account for a fifth of the 14,000 American restaurants.
The onions served at McDonald’s locations are past their expiration date and are no longer available for purchase. CDC officials said the risk to the public remained low.
The type of bacteria involved in this outbreak causes about 74,000 infections in the U.S. each year, leading to more than 2,000 hospitalizations and 61 deaths annually, according to the CDC.
Symptoms come on quickly, within a day or two of eating contaminated food, and typically include fever, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, and signs of dehydration – little or no urination, increased thirst and dizziness. The infection can cause some form of serious kidney damage, especially in children under five years of age. E coli poisoning in young children requires immediate medical attention.
Previous outbreaks of the bacterial disease have hampered sales at major fast-food restaurants as customers avoid the affected chains.
As news of the McDonald’s outbreak spread, Yum! Brands has made the decision to remove fresh onions from the menus of some of its KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains “out of an abundance of caution.”
Restaurant Brands International, the parent company of McDonald’s rival Burger King, removed onions from the menu at at least one outlet in Colorado, the state at the center of the McDonald’s outbreak.
“The business community has told us that we can’t use onions for the foreseeable future,” Maria Gonzales, the on-duty manager at a Burger King in Longmont, Colorado, said on Oct. 23. “They are no longer on our menu.”
Associated Press contributed to reporting