McDonald’s is in damage control after a deadly E. coli has left one person dead and dozens of the customers violently ill.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday that the culprit of the outbreak was McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.
McDonald’s announced it has proactively removed two ingredients from stores across two impacted regions, but leadership has assured that a majority of other menu items are not impacted, this according to the CDC.
According to the CDC, 49 people from 10 states have fallen ill with a strain known as E. coli O157:H7, which causes a severe intestinal infection in humans.
Most of the cases have been in Colorado, which has 27 reported cases, and Nebraska, which has nine reported cases, according to the CDC investigation.
Ten people have been hospitalized, including a child with complications from hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) — a disease that affects the kidneys.
An older person in Colorado has died, according to the CDC.
It’s not clear which ingredient is responsible for the illnesses, but CDC investigators are focused on one major ingredient: slivered onions.
“Heat destroys things like bacteria and viruses but in certain cases, especially when you’re producing massive amounts of food — and you have products that are not going to undergo heat, for example, vegetables — that leads to an opportunity for contamination,” ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Darien Sutton said. There is also concern that undercooked beef patties could be guilty as well.
McDonald’s told the CDC it has removed slivered onions and beef patties used for Quarter Pounder hamburgers from stores in the states where cases have been reported, the federal health agency said.
Quarter Pounders won’t be available for sale in some states as a result.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, McDonald’s North America Chief Supply Chain Officer Cesar Piña said that the fast food chain believes the outbreak is linked to slivered onions “used in the Quarter Pounder and sourced by a single supplier that serves three distribution centers.”
The CDC urges those who are experiencing severe E. coli symptoms and recently ate a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder to contact their health care provider immediately.