Blood on Erie-area McDonald's items alarms diner. County Health Department investigating
Elizabeth Kiddo was eating a Big Mac meal at the upper Peach Street McDonald's March 9 when she looked down and noticed a red smear across her palm.
Thinking it was ketchup, the 29-year-old Bemus Point, New York, woman licked the substance off her hand.
It wasn't ketchup.
"I realized that it must have been blood," Kiddo said. "I thought, 'What the heck, am I bleeding?' But I didn't have any cuts, and neither did my friend or any of our children."
Kiddo found drops of blood on her Big Mac container, one of the children's Happy Meal containers and one of her receipts. The most blood was found on the side of her beverage cup and spread to her hand when she gripped it to drink.
A week later, Kiddo said she is taking two antiviral medications and getting regular blood tests in case she has been exposed to HIV or hepatitis.
She doesn't know for sure if she has been exposed because staff at the McDonald's, 7200 Peach St., denied an employee was cut when an Erie County Department of Health inspector visited the facility March 11 to investigate the incident.
But a McDonald's Corp. public relations employee confirmed the incident to the Erie Times-News.
"The matter was solved with a Band-Aid," the spokeswoman said.
More: Erie County restaurant inspections for March 7-14, 2024
No incident report was filed at McDonald's
Kiddo showed McDonald's employees the blood-stained packaging. She said a shift manager then confirmed to Kiddo and her friend, Kelsie Stevens, that the employee who packaged their order had a cut that was bleeding.
But Kiddo said no one at McDonald's offered to file an incident report, which is standard procedure in such a situation, according to the McDonald's spokeswoman.
"They just kept saying they were sorry, took my cup and gave me a new one," Kiddo said. "They also took the other packaging, but I kept the receipt."
After the incident, Kiddo contacted her primary care physician's office, which recommended she start taking the antiviral drugs Truvada and Isentress to reduce her risk of illness. She also will undergo regular blood testing for at least the next six months.
More: Tired of rising fast-food prices? There's an app for that: David Bruce
How do different types of hepatitis spread?
No cases of HIV spread through blood spilled on consumed food have been reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Hepatitis A can be spread by an infected person improperly handling food, while hepatitis B and C are spread primarily through blood-to-blood contact.
Kiddo, who said she plans to discuss this with a lawyer, said she is frustrated that the employee who was bleeding has not been identified and tested for blood-borne diseases. A spokesman for the county Health Department said they could not release any other details about the incident because its investigation is continuing.
This incident comes less than a month after a food-handling employee at Cracker Barrel, 7810 Interstate Drive, was diagnosed with hepatitis A. Customers who ate food at the Summit Township restaurant between Feb. 10 and Feb. 21 were given hepatitis A vaccines at a county Health Department clinic.
No other reported cases of hepatitis A have been connected to the Cracker Barrel employee, county health officials have said.
From February: Second Erie-area hepatitis A vaccine clinic set after first one runs out of vaccine
Contact David Bruce at dbruce@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNBruce.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie-area McDonald's meal had blood on packaging
