If you’re searching for a deadly infection, look no further than your local fast-food soda fountain.
A survey of the water dispensed from soda fountains in fast food restaurants revealed that a shocking 41% of them were contaminated with coliform bacteria, an indicator of water impurity.
Further analysis showed that the water was contaminated with some of the deadliest “superbug” germs known to science.
These include antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Campylobacter jejuni, as well as Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli.
It gets worse: Not only were these disease-causing germs found in almost half of soda fountains, but they were also found in 80% of swabs from the taps of soda fountains, 50% of restaurant tap water and 20% of water-vending machines.
“It’s a general problem that I believe is kind of overlooked,” Thomas Hile, a researcher affiliated with Loma Linda University and the lead author of the study, told USA TODAY.
And although the survey was conducted only in the eastern Coachella Valley, a vast agricultural area east of Los Angeles primarily populated by Latino farmworkers, “We cannot say that soda fountain contamination is only in the eastern Coachella Valley,” he added.
“It’s a concern that they found these pathogens,” said Joan Rose, a microbiologist at Michigan State University who was not involved with the study. “It’s clearly an indicator that we need to do more investigations like this. We just don’t know how big the threat is.”
This isn’t the first time problems with fast-food cleanliness have been uncovered. Maggots and other worms have been found by customers in a McDonald’s dipping sauce dispenser and in a McDonald’s soda machine.
Read Related Also: The fallacy of the "Red Caesar"
Last year, a pregnant woman was left “disgusted” after she drank a whole Coke Zero from a McDonald’s only to find small maggots at the bottom of her drink.
And last August, six people were hospitalized — including three who later died — after they drank milkshakes contaminated with Listeria bacteria at a Frugals restaurant in Washington state.
It’s a long-standing problem: As far back as 2010, nearly half of all sodas from a sample of 30 machines in Virginia were found to have coliform bacteria.
For the latest study, researchers from the Loma Linda University School of Medicine collected 72 water samples from fast-food soda fountains, water-vending machines and restaurant tap water.
Analysis of the water samples found biofilms, which are communities of microorganisms that represent serious contamination problems in environmental, industrial and medical settings.
In many water samples, the amounts of bacteria in soda fountain samples exceeded the maximum permissible levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Based on the lab results, the authors stated that biofilms form over time in water distribution systems, mainly made of plastic piping, which supply water to soda fountains and water vending machines. If not cleaned and monitored regularly, this kind of piping is an ideal place for biofilm growth and bacteria to develop.
“The presence of pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water is a serious public health concern and cannot be overemphasized,” the authors wrote in their study, published in the journal Water Supply.
The researchers recommended greater surveillance and regulation around soda fountains at fast-food restaurants and water vending machines. They also suggested restaurants use antimicrobial tubing, similar to the tubing used by dentists, and urged regular cleaning to prevent bacteria from growing.
