Food Safety Scares Are Up In 2018. Here's Why You Shouldn't Freak Out

Matt Arteaga, 51, is one of about 500 people who got sick this summer in an outbreak linked to McDonald's salads. The cause was a parasite, cyclospora. Arteaga fell ill on a Thursday afternoon in June. He was in his office in Danville, Ill., when he says the symptoms came on quickly. "The chills, and body aches, severe cramping, sharp pain in my stomach," Arteaga recalls. After a test revealed he was infected with cyclospora, his case was reported to the Illinois Department of Public Health. At about the same time, there was "an uptick in reports of cyclospora that were being submitted to us," the director of the department, Dr. Nirav Shah, told us.