McDonald’s reassuring customers amid deadly E. coli scare

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration believes raw onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders probably caused the E. coli outbreak that killed one, sickened at least 49 and stretched across 10 states. Now, fast-food giant McDonald’s is reassuring its customers that the food it serves is safe and items that might have been part of the outbreak have been pulled.
Wednesday, McDonald’s USA President Joe Erlinger told NBC’s “Today” show that it’s safe to eat at McDonald’s. “We are very confident that you can go to McDonald’s and enjoy our classics,” he said. “I want to say to our consumers that you can confidently go to McDonald’s today.”
He added, “We took swift action yesterday to remove the Quarter Pounder from our menu. If there has been contaminated product within our supply chain, it’s very likely worked itself through that supply chain already.”
In an internal memo posted on the corporate website, the company said removing the Quarter Pounders occurred only from “an abundance of caution” in Colorado, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming and portions of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
Quarter Pounders will be back, the notice said, but “timing will vary by local market.”
Other food items, including other burger products, are not part of the outbreak and remain available, the notice said. It ended: “We will continue to work with the (CDC) and are committed to providing timely updates as we restore our full menu.”
Based on the preliminary investigation, McDonald’s said some of the illnesses likely came from onions provided by one supplier, who cleans and slices them, but also regularly tests for E. coli. The onions are packaged as single-servings to be put on Quarter Pounders.
“McDonald’s says the investigation has been complicated by the scope of the problem,” The Associated Press reported. “The company said it serves 1 million Quarter Pounders in the affected areas every two weeks. McDonald’s also said this strain of E. coli isn’t usually found in onions.”
Most of the E. coli infections in the outbreak and the single death were in Colorado. There were also multiple cases in Nebraska and infections reported in Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is also investigating the outbreak.
CDC said that anyone with severe gastric symptoms should seek medical attention.
McDonald’s said that its restaurants carry out daily food safety temperature checks and that the patties used in Quarter Pounders are stored at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower temperatures. Some of the restaurants get automatic alerts if temperatures near noncompliance with safety regulations. The company added that all Quarter Pounders are cooked only when they’re ordered and they are heated to 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
Finally, the notice said that workers are required to wash their hands every hour for 20 seconds, with no exceptions.
E. coli is caused by bacteria and can lead to cramps, diarrhea — sometimes severe or bloody — vomiting and dehydration. The vast majority of people who get it recover within a week on their own. But in severe outbreaks, people may be hospitalized, as happened with 10 people in this outbreak.
It only takes a few days after exposure to it for symptoms to appear. Cases were reported in late September through Oct. 11. As CNN reported, “Outbreaks like these can also wind down quickly after the tainted food or ingredient is removed from the market. That requires a thorough investigation to make sure all possible channels of distribution have been uncovered and stopped.”
CNN separately reported that McDonald’s stock (MCD) was down nearly 7% when the stock market opened Wednesday, “on pace for its worst day since March 12, 2020, when the world went into COVID lockdown.”
A July report by the CDC said that in 2023, the incidence of eight infections transmitted commonly through food at best remained stable and in other cases increased when compared to 2016-2018. Some increases are due to the higher sensitivity of a different testing technique called culture-independent diagnostic tests. But the report concluded that we’re far off the goal of decreasing infections from foodborne illness.
Among those that increased was domestically acquired E. coli. The study noted, however, that because the new testing “allows for diagnosis of infections that would previously have gone undetected, lack of progress toward disease reduction goals might reflect changing diagnostic practices rather than an actual increase in incidence.”
But the study labeled preventing such outbreaks “a public health priority” and noted we’re falling short of targets for E. coli and others.