Colorado teen fights kidney failure after eating McDonald's Quarter Pounders
A 15-year-old Colorado girl is hospitalized with severe complications of E
A 15-year-old high school freshman is hospitalized with severe complications of food poisoning after eating McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers three times in the weeks before a deadly E. coli outbreak was detected.
Kamberlyn Bowler, of Grand Junction, Colorado, had to be flown 250 miles to a hospital near Denver in mid-October, where she received dialysis for 10 days in an urgent effort to save her kidneys.
She is one at least 75 people sickened and 22 hospitalized in the outbreak tentatively traced to contaminated onions. In Mesa County, where Kamberlyn lives, 11 people have fallen ill and one person died. Federal health officials have said that slivered onions used on the burgers are a likely source of the outbreak.
The ordeal left Kamberlyn’s mother, Brittany Randall, worried about her daughter’s health and shaken at the idea that a burger could potentially cause so much harm.
“It’s pretty scary to know that we put so much faith and trust that we’re going to be eating something that’s healthy and for it to be broken,” said Randall.
She is moving to sue the fast-food chain after Kamberlyn was infected with the E. coli O157:H7 bacteria confirmed in the outbreak.
That bacteria produces a dangerous toxin that can cause a severe kidney disease complication known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, according to medical experts. Many children are hospitalized for weeks and some go on to require kidney transplants, said Dr. Myda Khalid, a kidney specialist at Riley Hospital for Children in Indiana who is not involved in Kamberlyn's care.
“Time is critical,” Khalid said. “We have to get through this window and we have to get through it with a lot of
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