BILLINGS — An E. coli outbreak, caused by McDonald's Quarter Pounders, has hit Montana harder than most states.
At least 75 people across 13 states have been linked to the illness, and Montana has 13 of those cases, which is the second most behind Colorado. According to RiverStone Health, eight of those Montana cases are confirmed to live in Yellowstone County. McDonald's has nine Yellowstone County restaurants: seven restaurants in Billings and one each in Lockwood and Laurel.
“Our first diagnosis date was the beginning of the month. So, Oct. 4... With this outbreak, we started getting a cluster of cases,” Stacie Pannell, the communicable disease program manager at RiverStone said. “As far as we know, there is no threat. Whatever food this was carried on is out of circulation. We haven't seen any new cases, any onset of symptoms of new cases for at least 20 days.”
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One person has died in Colorado from this outbreak. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration believes it was the slivered onions on the Quarter Pounder. Taylor Farms has recalled the onions that were sent to McDonald's restaurants and served on Quarter Pounders.
Bill Marler is a food safety lawyer who is representing 16 of the 75 people sickened by this outbreak.
“I've been practicing E. coli cases since the 1993 Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak," Marler said. "I've had E. coli cases against Taylor Farms, including E. coli cases against them with respect to onions in the past. And so I'm not surprised that it's onions.”
This case Marler is fighting is against McDonald's. His current clients are not in Montana.
He said he won't be surprised if the number of confirmed cases continues to rise.
"McDonald's is responsible for what happened. That doesn't mean that McDonald's isn't going to point the finger at Taylor Farms and saying, Hey, you need to take care of these people and they will. Taylor Farms is also going to be facing business loss claims from McDonald's because McDonald's lost, you know, $8 billion in stock value,” Marler said. “I would not be surprised. By the end of this week, we're probably looking at 100 (total cases)."
