How disease detectives’ quick work traced deadly E. coli outbreak to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders

Scientists say the fact that these cases were linked and solved so quickly makes it a noteworthy win.

Silas Mayes rolled into his local McDonald’s drive-through at lunchtime on Monday, October 7, and ordered his usual: a Quarter Pounder, fries and a Sprite. By Thursday morning, he was having waves of stomach cramps so intense that he could hardly stand up to get to the bathroom. “It was extremely painful. And every time I would use the bathroom, there would be blood,” said Silas, 17, who lives in Grand Junction, Colorado. “It was terrifying.” His mom, Lera Davidson, rushed him to the emergency room at St. Mary’s Regional Hospital when the bloody diarrhea continued. The doctors took a stool sample and sent it to a lab for analysis, and they gave him IV fluids and painkillers for the cramps. They kept him in the ER nearly all day, he said, but eventually sent him home. He couldn’t keep anything down. Even a small sip of water or one bite of a cracker would send him running for the toilet, and more blood would pour out of him. His stool tested positive for a strain of E. coli bacteria that is especially dangerous because it produces Shiga toxin, which penetrates and kills cells, causing tissue damage. One of the worst complications of these kinds of infections can be hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to kidney failure and may even be deadly, especially for young children and the elderly.