New Suit Alleges Popeyes Served Up Flesh Eating Screwworms

According to a report from the NY Daily News, Texas woman Karen Goode has filed suit against Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, alleging that the fast food chain served her a helping of flesh-eating worms. Specifically, Goode alleges that some rice and beans she ordered from a San Antonio location were invaded by Cochcliomyia hominivorax, otherwise known as “New World screwworms.” Of course, Goode unknowingly ingested the worms, and then:

The flesh eating screwworms entered the Plaintiff’s digestive track, laid eggs which embedded in the interior lining of Plaintiff’s small intestines, and when hatched, infested Plaintiff’s body and began to eat Plaintiff alive from inside-out.

In addition to being consumed by flesh-eating worms, Goode also alleges that she injured her neck, shoulders, and arms. She seeks damages in excess of $1 million.

We here at Abnormal Use often write of fast food-related lawsuits. This is the first involving flesh eating screwworms. Nonetheless, the questions are the same. First, assuming the allegations have merit, how did New World screwworms get into the rice? The United States was thought to be free from New World screwworms by the early 1980’s. However, recently, there have been reports of a screwworm outbreak affecting deer in South Florida. However, to our knowledge, human exposure has been rare in recent years.

Second, how did Goode not realize her rice was infested with screwworms? New World screwworms are approximately 8-10 mm in length. While admittedly a bowl of rice can be deceptive when it comes to spotting larvae, the thought of mistaking a grain of Popeyes rice for a screwwworm is troubling. Probably not something Popeyes wants to put in its next advertisement.

But the biggest question facing any food contamination case of this type is how does Goode know that she encountered the screwworm at Popeyes and not something else she ate/came in contact with? Goode’s complaint does not state exactly when she discovered the screwworms, so it is unknown at this point whether Goode actually observed the worms in the rice at any point. If not, Goode may face an uphill battle. Presumably, if Popeyes had an issue, the screwworms would not have been confined to Goode’s meal and this would not be an isolated event. For the love of San Antonio, let’s hope that is the case.

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