The 1993 Jack in the BoxE. coli outbreak occurred when the bacterium killed four children and infected 732 people across four states. The outbreak involved 73 Jack in the Box restaurants in California, Idaho, Washington, and Nevada, and has been described as "far and away the most infamous food poison outbreak in contemporary history." The majority of the victims were under 10 years old. Four children died and 178 other victims were left with permanent injury including kidney and brain damage. On February 10, 1993, newly inaugurated President Bill Clinton participated in a televised town meeting program from the studios of WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan. He fielded questions from the studio audience as well as studio audiences in Miami, Florida, and Seattle, Washington and responded to questions from the parents of Riley Detwiler – the fourth and final child to die in the E. coli outbreak. The wide media coverage and scale of the outbreak were responsible for "bringing the exotic-sounding bacterium out of the lab and into the public consciousness" but it was not the first E. coli O157:H7 outbreak resulting from undercooked patties. The bacterium had previously been identified in an outbreak of food poisoning in 1982, and before the Jack in the Box incident there had been 22 documented outbreaks in the United States resulting in 35 deaths.
Legacy
Sen. Richard Durbin, addressing a congressional hearing on food safety in 2006, described the outbreak as "a pivotal moment in the history of the beef industry." James Reagan, vice president of Research and Knowledge Management at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said that the outbreak was "significant to the industry" and "the initiative that moved us further down the roadand still drives us today." David Acheson, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Associate Commissioner for Foods, recently told Retro Report that "Jack in the Box was a wakeup call to many, including the regulators. You go in for a hamburger with the kids and you could die. It changed consumers' perceptions and it absolutely changed the behaviors of the industry." As a direct result of the outbreak:
The Food and Drug Administration increased the recommended internal temperature for cooked hamburgers from to.
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service introduced safe food-handling labels for packaged raw meat and poultry retailed in supermarkets, alongside an education campaign alerting consumers to the risks associated with undercooked hamburgers. The labels and the education campaign came with criticism and objection from the industry.
The FSIS introduced testing for E. coli O157:H7 in ground meat.
The NCBA created a task force to fund research into the reduction of E. coli O157:H7 in cattle and slaughterhouses.
Jack in the Box completely overhauled and restructured their corporate operations around food safety priorities, setting new standards across the fast food industry.
Roni Rudolph, mother of Lauren Rudolph, and many other parents of victims formed STOP Foodborne Illness, a national non-profit organization dedicated "to prevent Americans from becoming ill and dying from foodborne illness" by advocating for sound public policy, building public awareness, and assisting those impacted by foodborne illness.
Parents of the victims played key roles in spreading awareness and advocating for change – speaking directly to President Bill Clinton, meeting with Vice President Al Gore, testifying before the Clinton Healthcare Task Force, working with the Secretary of Agriculture, and discussing food safety issues with lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Darin Detwiler, who lost his son, Riley, to E. coli and hemolytic-uremic syndrome during the outbreak, later served as a regulatory policy advisor to the USDA for meat and poultry inspection. Dr. Detwiler became a professor of Food Policy and the Director of Regulatory Affairs of Food and Food Industry at Northeastern University. In 2018, 25 years after his son's death in the outbreak, Dr. Detwiler received the International Association for Food Protection's "Distinguished Service Award" for 25 years of contribution to food safety and policy.
