E. coli cases rise to 104 in McDonald’s outbreak linked to chopped onions

At least 104 people have been sickened, with 34 hospitalized, in an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning linked to onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers, federal health officials said Wednesday.

Cases have been detected in 14 states, according to an update from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One person has 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, the Carolinas and North. Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.

The diseases were reported in mid-September. 12 and October. 21. At least seven people who got sick said they ate McDonald’s food during the trip.

Chopped onions served in Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the outbreak, the CDC said. Taylor Farms, a California-based produce grower, recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.

Tests by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found a strain of E. coli bacteria that produces a dangerous toxin in a sample of onions, but it did not match the strain that made people sick, officials reported.

Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states during the early days of the outbreak.

McDonald’s officials said Wednesday that the company has identified an alternative supplier for the 900 restaurants that temporarily stopped serving onion burgers.

Over the past week, those restaurants resumed selling Quarter Pounders with chopped onions.

FDA officials said in a statement that “there does not appear to be an ongoing food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”

The type of bacteria implicated in this outbreak causes about 74,000 infections in the U.S. each year, leading to more than 2,000 hospitalizations and 61 deaths each year, according to the CDC.

Symptoms appear quickly, within a day or two of eating the contaminated food, and usually include fever, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, and signs of dehydration—little or no urination, increased thirst, and dizziness.

The infection can cause some kind of serious kidney damage, especially in children younger than 5 years old. E. coli poisoning in young children requires immediate medical attention.