Mother says she found potentially deadly pathogens in McDonald’s play areas

A mother says she found potentially dangerous bacteria in kid’s play areas. (AP Photo/file)

McDonald’s has banned a mother from its restaurants after she complained about filthy play areas.

“All I did was complain to management and tell the parents that it might be a good idea that the kid always wash their hands or sanitize before they eat,” says Erin Carr-Jordan, a professor of Child/Adolescent Development at the University of Pheonix.

Carr-Jordan tells 97.3 KIRO FM’s Ross and Burbank Show that this all started when she discovered what appeared to her to be unhealthy conditions when her son asked to play on the slide at a McDonald’s location in Arizona.

“Immediately upon entering, it was covered in old food that was rotting, and hair in big, giant, thick clumps, and it was sticky. There were black levels of goop that was in between the connecting surfaces,” says Carr-Jordan.

Listen to Erin Carr-Jordan on Ross and Burbank

She says she alerted management to the issue, but upon returning to the location, it appeared there had been no effort to clean up the play equipment.

“I went back repeatedly to find out whether it had been cleaned and taken care of. When it became incredibly evident that they had no intentions of cleaning it, I reached out to a friend of mine who happens to be an immunologist who has a pHD in microbiology. I said, ‘Does this have any impact on children’s health? And then why is it they’re not being taken care of?”

Carr-Jordan says she quickly discovered that there were no regulations on cleaning and maintenance of play equipment at restaurants.

At one of the locations from which she was banned, Carr-Jordan says that she found two potentially fatal contaminants including, Staphylococcus aureus, which she says could potentially be MRSA, an antibiotic resistant strain of staph bacteria, and Bacilus cereus, a cause of food-borne illeness.

“That’s why I complained to the manager, I went in and said, ‘You have to shut it down. This place is not safe for children.'”

Since the original discovery, Carr-Jordan says she has inspected other play areas across the country.

“I started doing a national study and I’ve been all around the country going inside all of these Playlands, and I look for equipment that’s breaking or broken, and levels of pathogens that can be dangerous to children.”

She says what she’d found in Phoenix turned out not to be an isolated incident.

“This is something that’s happening in the Eastern US, in the North, in the South, in the Midwest and in the Southwest.”

Carr-Jordan made several videos of kids play areas in restaurant locations around the country. She also made a list of concerning bacteria that she found at locations in each state she’s visited.

Carr-Jordan says she thinks play areas at restaurants should be held to regulations similar to other establishments that serve children.

“Those places like gyms and daycares, and other places where children are frequenting, those are all regulated, and people are required to report when there is an incident, or an infection or an illness so that parents are aware. At this point, the health department in no state even goes in and inspects them. They don’t even look at them,” says Carr-Jordan. “That’s the reason that I’m pushing for legislation. That’s the reason I’m pushing for regulation so that parents don’t have to deal with the crapshoot of ‘is the place on corner A safe,’ and ‘is the place on corner B not safe?'”

Carr-Jordan has launched a campaign called Kids Play Safe with a stated mission to “raise awareness, conduct microbiological testing, and reach out to the media in hopes to influencing public policy and instituting change.”

By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor