A Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries and a drink arranged at a McDonald's restaurant in El Sobrante, California, on October 23, 2024.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Ninety people in 13 states have been infected in a deadly E. coli outbreak McDonald's Quarter Pounders, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday as it continues to investigate the source of the spread.
The outbreak has resulted in 27 hospitalizations and one previously reported death of an older adult in Colorado.
Before Wednesday, the CDC last provided an update on the outbreak on Friday, when the agency said there were 75 cases in 13 states. The agency first announced the outbreak on October 22.
Fresh onion slices served on Quarter Pounders and other menu items at McDonald's are “the likely source of this outbreak,” the CDC said on its website Wednesday.
The additional illnesses stemmed from the time before McDonald's and Taylor Farms, which supplied onions to the affected region, took action to remove the ingredient from the 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 hamburgers are a core menu item for McDonald's, bringing in billions of dollars each year. The fast food giant said Sunday that burgers will return this week to about a fifth of U.S. restaurants, or about 3,000 locations, after removing the menu item due to the outbreak.
But about 900 of those locations will serve the Quarter Pounder without onion slivers for the foreseeable future as the CDC and other health authorities continue to investigate the cause of the outbreak. The change affects restaurants in Colorado, Kansas and Wyoming, as well as parts of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah.
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