Food Warning: FDA Investigating Lucky Charms Cereal For Stomach Illness Reports

More than 1,000 people have claimed stomach illnesses after eating the Lucky Charms cereal. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is already looking into it but has not issued a formal alert yet despite the growing number of complaints, according to NBC News.

Gastrointestinal symptoms linked to Lucky Charms Cereal

Racquel Ashman, a resident of Georgia, said she and her 7-year-old daughter, Olivia, recently got sick after consuming Lucky Charms. Olivia developed a headache and stomach pain and vomited on March 29, one day after eating the cereal. At first, Ashman didn't connect her daughter's illness to the cereal, but then she ate Lucky Charms from the same box on Saturday, and she also felt terrible. She complained of having abdominal cramps worse than her labor pains. Like her daughter, she was also vomiting.

According to Patrick Quade, iwaspoisoned.com's founder and CEO, more than 1,000 people across the U.S. have posted about gastrointestinal symptoms that they believed are linked to Lucky Charms on their website since April 1. Quade described it as the biggest surge of reports related to any single product reported on their website.

The symptoms repeatedly mentioned by consumers in the report included vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, and green stools. He said that the FDA is now aware of the reports and is investigating the matter. An FDA official said that their agency takes any reports of possible adulterating a food that may cause illnesses or injury.

Quade said it was in July 2021 when he first noticed an unusual uptick in reports about Lucky Charms, and since then, the number of reports has stayed above average.

According to Martin Bucknavage, a senior food safety extension associate at Penn State University, the incident warrants further investigation as "something is certainly not right."

However, General Mills, the maker of Lucky Charms, said it discounts the claims against the cereal being the cause of the stomach problems. It said that food is its top priority, and they take consumer concerns reported via a third-party website very seriously. The company also said they had not found evidence that the complaints were attributed to the product. The company encouraged the consumers to share concerns with General Mills directly so they could address them appropriately.

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Ongoing FDA investigation

According to Yahoo! News, the FDA has yet to confirm that Lucky Charms caused any foodborne illness.

The FDA has its reporting systems for food safety issues, but the agency said it had tallied only 41 reports related to Lucky Charms since 2004 and only three in 2021.

The FDA declined to give further details about its investigation after reporting that its Food and Cosmetic Information Center, responsible for answering questions about food safety, has not received any calls related to Lucky Charms.

Bucknavage asserted that it's unusual for cereal to be associated with so many reports of stomach problems. Although an entire FDA or CDC investigation would be needed to determine the root cause, he speculated that chemical contamination could also be possible. 

He added that some accounts on iwaspoisoned.com say symptoms came on within a few hours of eating Lucky Charms, and bacteria like salmonella or E. coli generally don't result in illness for 24 to 48 hours after entering the body.

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