A quarter pounder with cheese, fries and a drink at a McDonald's restaurant in El Sobrante, California, on October 23, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | fake images
Ninety people in 13 states have been infected in a deadly E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald's Quarter Pounders, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday, as they continue to investigate the source of the spread.
The outbreak has led to 27 hospitalizations and one previously reported death of an older adult in Colorado.
Before Wednesday, the CDC last gave an update on the outbreak on Friday, when the agency said it had 75 cases in 13 states. The agency first announced the outbreak on October 22.
Fresh chopped onions served in quarter-pounders and other McDonald's menu items are “the likely source of this outbreak,” the CDC said on its website Wednesday.
The additional illnesses predate McDonald's and Taylor Farms, which supplied onions to the affected region, took steps to remove the ingredient from affected locations, the agency added. The CDC believes the risk to the public is “very low” due to the efforts of McDonald's and Taylor Farms.
“The likelihood that contaminated onions are still available for sale is low,” the agency wrote.
Quarter Pounder burgers are a centerpiece of McDonald's menu and rake in billions of dollars each year. The fast-food giant said Sunday that burgers will return to about a fifth of U.S. restaurants this week, or about 3,000 locations, after it removed the menu item due to the outbreak.
But about 900 of those locations will serve Quarter Pounder without chopped onions for the foreseeable future as the CDC and other health authorities continue to examine the origin of the outbreak. The change will affect restaurants in Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming, as well as parts of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah.
