Consumers file class action lawsuit against McDonald’s after E. coli bacteria was found in burgers from the restaurant chain, Reuters reports.
Earlier, NBC News reported that American Clarissa DeBock, who lives in Nebraska, filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s after she became a victim of a mass E. coli infection that has engulfed ten US states.
“In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Chicago, Amanda McCray and William Michael Kraft said they experienced multiple symptoms associated with E. coli after buying quarter-pound burgers this month,” the agency reported.
The plaintiffs demanded damages for all Americans who contracted E. coli contained in the burgers. They also said that they would not have bought their burgers if the company had warned customers about the risks of infection.
Earlier, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 49 people in the US had contracted E. coli after eating burgers from McDonald’s fast food restaurants, of which ten people were hospitalized and one died. Later, the organization reported that the number of Americans who had contracted E. coli had exceeded 70 people, including 22 people who were hospitalized.
CBS previously reported that McDonald’s had removed the quarter-pound burger, also known as the “Royal Cheeseburger”, from the menu in 20% of its restaurants in the US after an outbreak of E. coli, which was believed to have been caused by onions that had not undergone the necessary heat treatment. NBC News also reported that major US fast food chains Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut had removed onions from their products in some restaurants following McDonald’s.