E. Coli Outbreak Update: McDonald's Serves Quarter Pounders Again, Burger King and KFC Drop Onions

A huge E. coli outbreak has killed one person and sickened 75 people. It’s been linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders, and it’s spread to 13 states so far, mostly in the Mountain West. McDonald’s stopped serving the popular burger, and a large onion supplier issued a recall for possible E. coli contamination last week. Here are the latest developments in the ongoing Quarter Pounder outbreak. 

Federal regulators still don’t know the cause of the outbreak for sure, but officials in Colorado said on Sunday that they ruled out beef. The Colorado Department of Agriculture tested fresh and frozen beef from McDonald’s locations and all samples were negative for E. coli. They do not plan to test any more samples. 

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service is leading the investigation on the onions used by McDonald’s to determine if they were the source of the E. coli outbreak. While we haven’t heard from the agency about the investigation yet, it’s probable that the onions were the cause of the problem. Last week, Taylor Farms, the sole supplier of the onions on the Quarter Pounders in areas in the outbreak, recalled yellow onions for possible E. coli contamination. 

Now that officials ruled out beef and Taylor Farms onions have been removed from all restaurants, McDonald’s has put Quarter Pounders back on the menu in areas where it had stopped serving them. The burgers won’t have onions on them at all, however, at least at first. Whether that’s enough to convince people that they’re safe to order again is anyone’s guess. 

Because of the Taylor Farms onion recall, a number of fast food chains have also removed onions from the menu in some parts of the U.S. Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut have all pulled raw onions from menus. A representative for Burger King has said the move is out of an abundance of caution, but you’ve got to figure that customers are avoiding onions at fast food restaurants across the board. 

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