McDonald's Faces Suit After Girl Becomes Ill

http://www.clickondetroit.com/health/7203213/detail.html ^

[ShadowDancer]

McDonald's Faces Suit After Girl Becomes Ill

POSTED: 9:03 pm EST February 18, 2006

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The parents of a 5-year-old girl have sued McDonald's Corporation claiming its French fries contained a wheat protein that caused their daughter to become seriously ill.

Mark and Theresa Chimiak said in the lawsuit filed Friday in Palm Beach Circuit Court that their daughter Annalise had an intolerance to gluten.

The Chimiaks said they filed the lawsuit after McDonald's acknowledged earlier in the week that wheat and dairy ingredients were used in cooking oil for French fries.

The family's attorney, Brian W. Smith, said the family had checked with McDonald's before she ate the fries and were assured the product was gluten-free.

Jack Daly, senior vice president of McDonald's, said in an e-mail to the Palm Beach Post that the company is conducting research to determine that the fries have no gluten.

[drhogan]

it also depends on WHO you ask. if you asked a busboy at the restaurant, it would be unreasonable to expect a valid answer.
if the family asked the manager at macdonalds, they probably have a good suit.

[Trailerpark Badass]

The doctrine, respondeat superior, goes back to the age-old question: who's in the best position to avoid the harm...the people who cook a million fries a day or the person who visits McD's a few times a year?

I would think the people in the best position to avoid harm are the parents of the child, who can certainly prepare food safe for their child without having to rely on the chemistry expertise of a fast-food monkey.

I hope the judgment they receive will assuage the pain of their loss.

[pageonetoo]

To my limited knowledge, yes. From personal experience with my daughter, she has no problems eating anything, these days. She did without stuff until around age 5-6, then we slowly introduced her to a variety of foods (all, under the supervision of her pediatrician). According to the specialists, this is lifelong, but not proven so, in our lives.

I do not believe this woman's child (in the article) had a severe reaction to anything she ate at MickeyD's. I don't know of anybody that does (though I also don't know all the people in the world). I think she found a hungry lawyer, with a penchant for frivolity. If John Edwards can channel a little dead girl, then anything like this is definitely possible!

As for more answers, my link is to the Celiac Disease Foundation... They actually have facts!

[rock58seg]

Then You'll love this one.

Subject: TEXAS CHILI


A young cowboy walks into a seedy cafe in * * Abilene, Texas . *
*
> * *He sits at the counter and notices an old cowboy with his
> arms folded staring blankly at a full bowl of chili.*
> * After fifteen minutes of just sitting there staring at it, the
young
> cowboy bravely asks the old cowpoke, "If you ain't gonna eat that,
mind
> if I do?"*
> * The older cowboy slowly turns his head toward the young wrangler
and
> in his best cowboy manner says, "Nah, go ahead."*
> * Eagerly, the young cowboy reaches over and slides the bowl
> over to his place and starts spooning it in with delight. He gets
> nearly down to the bottom and notices a dead mouse in the chili.
> The sight was shocking and he immediately pukes up the chili into
the bowl.*
> * The old cowboy quietly says, "Yep, that's as far as I got, too.*

[pageonetoo]

Actually, potato flour is used as a substitute for wheat flour in a gluten-free diet.

Take one pound chicken breasts, cut into strips. Dry well on paper towel.
Heat frying pan with 1/2" vegetable oil (I prefer olive) to almost smoking.
Dip strips into a pan of egg, thinned with a little milk.
dredge strips in pan of potato flakes.
Place them into pan, and fry until golden brown...

Serve with applesauce, and any veggie you can get them to eat.
IMHO, these are better than any flour dipped chicken strips you have eaten!

[robertpaulsen]

Then what is RossA talking about in post #33?

[cyborg]

After the whole thing with my mom and her leg, I lost a lot of interest in McDonald's. Plus it's garbage food and you are what you eat. Did she really expect the purest, most pristine food at McDonald's? If they have something in writing that says, the potatoes are gluten free, oh well I hope she wins. It sounds so dumb, gluten free potatoes, but these are the times we're living in.

[pageonetoo]

I have no idea! Here are some offendeers, from the CD site...

Be aware that hidden gluten can be found in some unlikely foods such as: cold cuts, soups, hard candies, soy sauce, many low or non-fat products, even licorice and jelly beans.

Potential harmful ingredients include:
* unidentified starch
* modified food starch
* hydrolyzed vegetable protein - HVP
* hydrolyzed plant protein - HPP
* texturized vegetable protein - TVP
* binders
* fillers
* excipients
* extenders
* malt

Gluten may also be used as a binder in some pharmaceutical products. Request clarification from food and drug manufacturers when necessary.

[Mr Rogers]

Spoken like someone with a lawsuit.

If you ask the janitor in a hospital for medical advice, and it proves wrong - can you sue the hospital?

Any idiot who thinks the server at a McD's knows anything other than how to 'supersize' deserves any reactions they get.

[muir_redwoods]

"This suit is total Bravo Sierra, like the coffee incident.

I disagree. If McD's told the family that the fries were gluten-free, but they weren't, it's classic negligence. It's akin to a restaurant telling me that a certain food has no peanuts (which I'm allergic to) but then it turns out that the food does have peanuts."

Nothing in a place that sells billions of sandwiches is ever going to be 100% gluten free. If the kid were mine to love and care for I'd never set foot in a sandwich shop for something to eat. I smell a set-up.

[SamAdams76]

I think the health nazi busybodies ought to remove the child from the care of the parents and put her in a foster home. After all, the mother was negligient in giving her daughter fast food from the evil McDonalds (which contains MEAT products!).

Isn't this what the world is coming down to?

[cyborg]

If I had a child with food sensitivities, I would not take such a child to a fast food restaurant. There's a lot of cross contamination of products and cooking tools.

[tet68]

They're just Glutens for punishment.

[hershey]

If the parents had any sense, they'd have avoided fast food joints, period. You know for sure what your child eats when you prepare it, yourself. Or go to MacDonald's and order the salad.

[garyhope]

That sounds good. I used Italian bread crumbs the last time I did something similar. Then I mad a lot of sauteed onions with a tarragon cream sauce. Not bad.

Any particular brand of potato flakes?

[BunnySlippers]

I think this case is more like the one were the vegetarian guy sued McDonald's as the fries were not totally vegetarian ... there was a meat extract in it to enhance the flavor. What I want to know is why anyone who is discriminating about food for health or otherwise is doing even considering eating fast food.

[ViLaLuz]

Is it possible that residue from frying the apple pies can stick to the french fries in the cooking grease and cause a gluten reaction?

[pageonetoo]

Any particular brand of potato flakes?

I use Food Lion house brand most of the time. It's only one part of the equation. The onions sound good, and my wife LOVES anything with tarragon.

Celebrity has a great tarragon salad dressing, and I think she likes to go cruising, just for another taste! I like all of their fare!

Here's a Sample Dinner menu, courtesy of their website:

a p p e t i z e r s

Bouquet of Tropical Fruits with a Dash of Galliano
Parma Ham with Melon and Figs
Escargots à la Bourguignonne
Brandade de Morue

s o u p s

Cream of Mushroom
Consomme Captain Morgan
Chilled Exotic Paradise

s a l a d s

Tossed Green Leaf and Radicchio Lettuce with Radish, Bacon, toasted Croutons and Red Wine Vinaigrette
Romaine, Frissee and Escarole Lettuce topped with Cucumber, Peppers and Italian Parsley

e n t r é e s

Pave of Congrio
(Broiled Congrio complemented by a Green Peppercorn-Anchovy Butter with freshly squeezed Lime Juice)

Thai Noodles with Spiced Crab
(Pleasant combination of Rice Noodle cooked Paht Thai Style with crispy Vegetables in a spicy Sauce garnished with Chili coated Crab Legs)

Supreme of Chicken Chiquita
(Choice boneless Breast of Chicken stuffed with Bananas and Ham, coated with Coconut Flakes and served with Curry Peanut Sauce)

Buco Alla Milanese con Gremolata
(A traditional Italian dish of Veal Shank cooked in an aromatic Tomato Veloute with Orange Zest, served with Risotto)

Chateaubriand Brillat Savarin
(Choice Tenderloin broiled and sliced, served with fresh Vegetables, Bearnaise and Madeira Sauces)

d e s s e r t s

Red Fruit Stratus
Peach Sovereign
Moelleux Tiede de Chocolat
Coconut and Raw Sugar Flan
No Sugar Added Pastry Cigar
Butter Pecan, Vanilla, Pistachio or No Sugar Added Ice Cream
Sherbet of the Day with Poached Pear and Strawberry Sauce

[ReignOfError]

Due diligence on the part of the parents is not satisified by simply asking a sever

"Asking a server" is an invention of someone on this thread. The story says only that the parents "checked with McDonald's." That might mean that they asked the kid behind the counter, or called an 800 number, or checked the ingredient listings available in the restaurant, or went to the Web site.

According to this AP story , the McDonald's Web site did not list the fries as potentially containing gluten until this month.

I hope the courts have something more to go on than Freepers' wild-assed guesses about pimple-faced teenagers.

[ReignOfError]

McDonald's has this covered in their "McDonald's USA Food Allergens and Sensitivities Listing " list.

Does now. Didn't a month ago.