Mother alleges link between McDonald's burger and renal failure

People walk past a McDonald’s store in Seoul, Friday. The fast food chain has been under fire for months over an alleged link between a four-year-old girl’s loss of kidney function and her eating a McDonald’s hamburger. Yonhap

By Lee Kyung-min

A mother is continuing her protest Friday over an alleged link between her four-year-old daughter’s loss of kidney function and eating a McDonald’s hamburger. The daughter, who ate a Happy Meal, lost 90 percent kidney function and is still undergoing treatment for her condition while her parents are claiming an undercooked patty was the cause.

According to the family of the girl, whose identity is being withheld, she developed a stomachache three hours after she ate a burger from a McDonald’s in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province on Sept. 25 last year.

Her parents took her to a nearby hospital the next day as her stomachache became worse and she started vomiting. She had bloody diarrhea the next day.

She was admitted to an intensive care unit after being diagnosed with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), a disease characterized by anemia caused by destruction of red blood cells and acute kidney failure. It predominantly, but not exclusively, affects children.

She was discharged from the hospital two months later, but has since been undergoing peritoneal dialysis, a treatment for kidney failure, for up to 10 hours on a daily basis.

Her parents and her legal representatives claim the HUS was caused by eating undercooked ground meat contaminated with E. coli O157, a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause dehydration, bloody diarrhea and abdominal pains after infection, symptoms all experienced by the girl.

Her mother Choi Eun-joo said the only meat, ground or otherwise, her daughter had was the Bulgogi burger sold at the McDonald’s.

“My daughter did not have a health problem before eating the burger. I feel devastated every time my daughter is in pain asking me when the bad worm inside will get removed,” she said.

Choi filed a complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, claiming the fast food giant violated laws on food safety.

“McDonald’s was aware of a possible HUS outbreak, but failed to notify the customers in advance when children, the primary customer base of its Happy Meal menu, are far more susceptible to the disease,” Choi said. She will ask the prosecutors to secure surveillance video footage of the kitchen as evidence.

The case will be undertaken by the unit that investigated the deadly humidifier disinfectant manufactured by Oxy Reckitt Benckiser, responsible for the worst biocide disaster in Korea that killed more than 140 victims mostly women and children. Civic groups claim the death toll exceeded 1,000.

McDonald’s Korea denied any links between the product and the girl’s illness, saying that the meat cooking process is machine-operated, with little possibility of error.

“More than 300 burgers were sold on the day in question, but we have not received complaints, none, other than from the parents of the girl,” a company representative said.

“No irregularities were reported according to the food safety maintenance log on the day, and district officials’ inspections later did not find any safety breach issues, either,” she added.

“We hope the prosecution will accurately identify the cause of the girl’s illness. We will fully cooperate with the investigation.”