--- title: The Ten Largest Foodborne Illness Outbreaks in the U.S. Since 1993 — and Marler Clark’s Role in Them date: 2026-06-13T11:55:00-07:00 author: Bill Marler canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/the-ten-largest-foodborne-illness-outbreaks-in-the-u-s-since-1993-and-marler-clarks-role-in-them" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Press Releases](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/press-releases) / # The Ten Largest Foodborne Illness Outbreaks in the U.S. Since 1993 — and Marler Clark’s Role in Them I started doing this work in 1993, sitting in a hospital hallway at Seattle Children's while a nine-year-old girl named Brianne Kiner fought for her life. More than thirty years later, I have had a front-row seat to nearly every major foodborne illness outbreak in the United States. People ask me all the time which ones were the "biggest." It is a fair question with a complicated answer, because "biggest" can mean two very different things. This list ranks the ten largest outbreaks since 1993 by the number of people sickened. That is the most common way the word "largest" gets used, but it is worth saying up front: the outbreak that sickens the most people is rarely the one that kills the most. I come back to that at the end, because the deadliest outbreaks of my career — the ones I think about at night — do not even crack this top ten by case count. A note on honesty before I start. Marler Clark did not handle every outbreak on this list, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. The largest outbreak in American history happened before our firm even existed. Where we represented victims, I will tell you who and how. Where we didn't, I will tell you that too. **1. Schwan's Ice Cream — Salmonella, 1994 (an estimated 224,000 sickened)** This remains the largest single-source foodborne illness outbreak ever documented in the United States, and it is not close. A team publishing in the \*New England Journal of Medicine\* estimated that roughly 224,000 people nationwide developed Salmonella Enteritidis after eating Schwan's ice cream. The cause was almost absurdly preventable: the ice cream premix had been hauled to the Marshall, Minnesota plant in tanker trucks that had previously carried raw, unpasteurized liquid egg, and was never pasteurized afterward. Our role: None. I want to be straight about that. This was 1994. Marler Clark was not founded until 1998. I include it because any honest list of the largest outbreaks has to start here, and because Schwan's actually handled its response responsibly — pulling product and warning the public quickly, at a time when that was not the norm. **2. Wright County Egg — Salmonella, 2010 (nearly 2,000 confirmed; likely tens of thousands)** Almost 2,000 laboratory-confirmed Salmonella Enteritidis illnesses were tied to shell eggs from Iowa producers Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, and because most Salmonella cases never get cultured, CDC believed the true number ran into the tens of thousands. Roughly half a billion eggs were recalled — one of the largest egg recalls in the history of the country. The operation belonged to Austin "Jack" DeCoster, a name already infamous in food safety circles. Executives ultimately faced criminal penalties and jail time. Our role: We represented victims of this outbreak, including Sarah Lewis. These were exactly the kind of cases that show how a "minor" illness on paper can upend a person's life. **3. Salmonella Saintpaul, Peppers — 2008 (1,442 sickened)** This one is a cautionary tale about traceback. For weeks, federal investigators told the public that raw tomatoes were the culprit, and the tomato industry took an enormous and largely undeserved hit. The real source turned out to be jalapeño and serrano peppers grown in Mexico. By the time it was over, 1,442 people were confirmed ill across 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada; at least 286 were hospitalized, and two deaths were linked to the outbreak. Our role: On August 1, 2008, we filed suit against Wal-Mart and the pepper distributor Frontera Produce on behalf of a Colorado man who got sick after eating raw jalapeños bought at a Wal-Mart in Cortez — both he and the peppers tested positive for the outbreak strain. We represented multiple plaintiffs, and the claims against Wal-Mart were resolved. **4. Salmonella Newport, Onions — 2020 (more than 1,000 sickened)** Red, yellow, and white onions from Thomson International of Bakersfield, California sickened more than a thousand people across 48 states and triggered a sprawling recall on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border. Roughly 150 people were hospitalized. Our role: We filed the first lawsuit in the country in this outbreak, in San Diego, on behalf of Keith Robert Willis, who fell ill on July 1 after eating Thomson red onions. We also brought a federal case on behalf of a Canadian citizen sickened by the same onions. **5. Salmonella Oranienburg, Onions — 2021 (more than 1,000 sickened)** Almost as if to prove the previous year was no fluke, onions did it again. More than a thousand people were sickened across 39 states, with 260 hospitalized, in an outbreak traced to imported onions. Two billion-onion outbreaks in two consecutive years is not bad luck — it is a supply chain problem we still have not solved. Our role: As in 2020, we investigated the outbreak and represented consumers sickened by contaminated onions. **6. Salmonella Poona, Cucumbers — 2015 (more than 900 sickened)** Cucumbers imported from Mexico sickened more than 900 people in 40 states, hospitalized about 200, and were linked to six deaths. Produce keeps showing up on this list for a reason: we eat it raw, there is no cook step to kill the pathogen, and a single contaminated lot can travel coast to coast in days. Our role: We represented victims of this outbreak. Cucumbers, like peppers, onions, leafy greens, and sprouts, are a recurring chapter in our Salmonella casework. **7. Peanut Corporation of America — Salmonella, 2008–2009 (714 sickened, 9 dead)** In thirty years of this work, I have never seen anything that so clearly warranted criminal prosecution. At least 714 people in 46 states were sickened and nine died after eating products made with peanut paste and peanut butter from PCA's plants in Blakely, Georgia and Plainview, Texas. More than 3,600 products were recalled — crackers, cookies, candy, ice cream, even pet food. Internal emails later showed that the company shipped product it knew, or had every reason to know, was contaminated. Our role: This was one of our largest matters ever. We filed 41 lawsuits and represented around 100 clients, including the families of people who died — Shirley Almer, Nellie Napier, and Clifford Tousignant, a Korean War veteran with three Purple Hearts. Two of our client families testified before Congress. I publicly called for criminal charges, and I am glad I did: in 2015, PCA owner Stewart Parnell was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison — a landmark in food safety enforcement. **8. Jack in the Box — E. coli O157:H7, 1993 (more than 700 sickened, 4 children dead)** This is where it all began, for me and for modern food safety law. More than 700 people across Washington, Idaho, California, and Nevada were sickened by undercooked, E. coli-contaminated hamburgers; around 170 were hospitalized, dozens of children developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, and four children died. The company had been warned its patties were being undercooked but had decided that cooking them to a safe temperature made them too tough. Our role: This is our origin story. I represented Brianne Kiner — who spent more than 40 days in a coma — and won a $15.6 million settlement, then a Washington record. Our lawyers handled most of the litigation, recovering more than $50 million for some 200 clients. In 1998, the lawyers who had represented the victims joined with two who had defended Jack in the Box to form Marler Clark — the first firm in the country devoted solely to representing the victims of foodborne illness. **9. Chi-Chi's — Hepatitis A, 2003 (more than 650 sickened, 4 dead)** To this day, this is the largest hepatitis A outbreak in U.S. history. More than 650 people were infected after eating green onions imported from Mexico and served at a Chi-Chi's at the Beaver Valley Mall outside Pittsburgh; four people died, and more than 9,000 who had eaten there or been exposed had to get immune globulin shots. The chain, already in bankruptcy, never recovered and closed its doors for good. Our role: We represented victims of the outbreak, including Richard Miller, and pursued claims even through the company's bankruptcy. A class settlement compensated thousands who had received preventive shots. **10. Foster Farms — Salmonella Heidelberg, Chicken, 2013–2014 (more than 600 sickened)** This outbreak sickened more than 630 people across 29 states and Puerto Rico and dragged on for some 18 months. Two things made it notable: an unusually high hospitalization rate — close to 40 percent — and the fact that the Salmonella strains involved were resistant to multiple antibiotics. It also exposed a gap in our regulatory system, because USDA struggled to force a recall of the implicated raw chicken. Our role: We represented six individuals sickened in this outbreak. **"Largest" is not the same as "deadliest"** If you ranked these outbreaks by who died rather than who got sick, the order would change completely — and the names would change too. The deadliest foodborne illness outbreak of my career sickened only about 147 people. In 2011, Listeria-contaminated cantaloupe from Jensen Farms in Colorado killed 33 people across 28 states and caused a pregnant woman to lose her child. It would not make a top-fifty list ranked by case count, but Listeria kills the elderly and the immunocompromised at a horrifying rate, and few outbreaks have stayed with me like that one. We represented victims all of the families of victims who died. The 2018 Yuma romaine lettuce E. coli O157:H7 outbreak sickened about 210 people but killed five and left scores with kidney failure — the deadliest E. coli outbreak in this country in more than a decade. The 2006 Dole baby spinach E. coli outbreak sickened a bit over 200 but killed three to five and put leafy-green safety on the national agenda for good. We were deeply involved in both. I point this out because raw case counts can mislead. A Salmonella outbreak that sickens a thousand healthy adults who recover in a week is, in human terms, often less devastating than a Listeria outbreak that kills two dozen grandparents and newborns. Both matter. They just matter differently. **Beyond the courtroom** Litigation is only part of how I have tried to make food safer, and honestly it is the part I would most like to make unnecessary. Early on I realized that winning a case for one family, however much it mattered to that family, did nothing to change the conditions that sickened them. So, I started showing up everywhere else the fight was happening. In 2009 I founded Food Safety News, a daily, independent newsroom covering outbreaks, recalls, and regulation, and I have written about these issues on my own blog for more than two decades. I have testified before Congress, lectured at universities and to industry groups around the world, and I teach regularly at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. When the science needed funding that no one else would pay for, I have paid for it myself. A great deal of that work has been aimed squarely at government and industry rather than any one defendant. I pushed hard for the Food Safety Modernization Act, the most significant overhaul of our food safety laws in seventy years. I petitioned the USDA to declare the six most dangerous non-O157 strains of E. coli as adulterants in beef, and in 2012 the agency did exactly that. I have spent years pressing the FDA and USDA to stop hiding traceback information behind FOIA redactions, and I have petitioned to have Salmonella treated as the adulterant it plainly is. I run RealRawMilkFacts.com and argue, to anyone who will listen, for plain-language warning labels on raw milk, because the people it hurts — often children — rarely chose the risk themselves. The Netflix documentary \*Poisoned\*, based on Jeff Benedict's book about the Jack in the Box outbreak, carried a lot of this to an audience no courtroom ever could. **The throughline** Look back over these thirty-plus years and a pattern jumps out. The ground-beef E. coli cases that defined my early career have nearly vanished — not because lawyers are clever, but because the Jack in the Box catastrophe forced the beef industry, and the regulators behind it, to actually change. That is the whole point. Every one of these outbreaks was preventable. Every settlement, every criminal conviction, every recall is also a lesson the industry did not have to learn the hard way. My goal has always been to put myself out of business. We are not there yet. But the fact that beef rarely calls anymore — while peppers, onions, cucumbers, eggs, and leafy greens still do — tells you exactly where the work that remains is. ### Lawsuit updates about foodborne illnesses [Reactive Arthritis Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=reactive-arthritis&year=all) [E. coli Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=e-coli&year=all) [Guillain-Barre Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=guillain-barre-syndrome&year=all) [Salmonella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=salmonella&year=all) [Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hemolytic-uremic-syndrome&year=all) [Listeria Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=listeria&year=all) [Irritable Bowel Syndrome Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=irritable-bowel-syndrome&year=all) [Hepatitis A Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=hepatitis-a&year=all) [Norovirus Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=norovirus&year=all) [Botulism Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=botulism&year=all) [Campylobacter Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=campylobacter&year=all) [Shigella Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=shigella&year=all) [Cyclospora Lawsuit Updates](/news_events/case-news?illness=cyclospora&year=all) ### Lawsuits updates by year [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1998](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1998) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 1999](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=1999) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2000](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2000) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2001](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2001) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2002](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2002) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2003](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2003) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2004](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2004) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2005](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2005) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2006](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2006) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2007](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2007) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2008](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2008) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2009](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2009) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2010](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2010) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2011](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2011) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2012](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2012) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2013](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2013) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2014](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2014) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2015](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2015) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2016](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2016) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2017](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2017) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2018](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2018) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2019](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2019) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2020](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2020) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2021](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2021) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2022](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2022) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2023](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2023) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2024](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2024) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2025](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2025) [Foodborne Illness Lawsuits in 2026](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/case-news?illness=all&year=2026) ##### Get Help #### Affected by an outbreak or recall? 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