Dr. Marion Nestle, longtime NYU professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, with additional faculty roles at UC San Francisco and Cornell, is best known for analyzing the intersections of food, politics, and health, often exposing how government policy, corporate lobbying, and food industry marketing shape what we eat.
The Cyclospora outbreak: an everyone-is-at-fault system failure: “Lettuce-Gate”
I am outraged by the Cyclospora outbreak. It has sickened thousands of people so far (>16,000?), and made some of them very sick.
Cyclospora is different from other foodborne pathogens. It comes from human waste and cannot be removed by washing (although that helps some) or killed by chlorine. It can only be removed by microfiltration or killed by heat or, maybe, ultra-violet radiation.
It needs to prevented from getting into irrigation water.
Lettuce producers have known about the Cyclospora hazard for more than a decade. They have not acted, and neither has the government.
Hence, “Lettuce-Gate.”
Background
People are getting sick from eating some green thing—Lettuce? Parsley? Cilantro?—contaminated with a human-specific species of the parasitic microbe Cyclospora, which infects the digestive tract, causes “explosive” diarrhea, and is spread to vegetables via human feces, most likely through irrigation water. [See: JAMA patient page: What is Cyclosporiasis?]
This outbreak is remarkable, not only for the large number of people affected, but also because of the inadequate, delayed, and chaotic oversight and response.
And the usual denials and finger-pointing.
- HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr says the outbreak is “under control.” It is not; cases are still flooding in, many of them from Michigan.
- Mexico says there’s no evidence its lettuce is at fault; of course there isn’t. It’s been eaten already.
- Taco Bell: Says it is no longer using Taylor Farms lettuce.
The DOGE-decimated CDC only issued its first health advisory two weeks after cases were reported, provides much less information than it used to, and is way behind on its tracking.
The equally DOGE-decimated FDA has made a mess of communication. It first reported finding a positive sample in lettuce from Mexico, but then retracted that result saying it was a false positive. It also reports much less than it used to about outbreaks under investigation on its website: FDA: Investigation of 5-state outbreak of Cyclospora illnesses: Iceberg lettuce (July 2026). It still says the contaminated lettuce came from Taylor Farms in Mexico, based on the epidemiology.
For detailed analyses of FDA and CDC failure see Phyllis Entis at eFoodAlert and Bill Marler’s.
Yes, Cyclospora is hard to investigate. Symptoms do not occur for days or weeks after eating contaminated food. This means the evidence was eaten or destroyed long before anyone got sick.
Food Safety Rules
Everyone who produces food is supposed to assess the production procedures for places where contamination can occur, take steps to prevent contamination at those places, monitor to make sure the steps were taken, and test to make sure the procedures are working. The FDA is supposed to inspect to make sure all his is happening.
The Food Safety Modernization Act issued rules for produce safety. These include standards for irrigation water, but these do not apply well to Cyclospora (because it resists washing and chlorine).
If vegetable producers took appropriate steps, contamination risks would be much lower.
But if there is no federal oversight, no inspection, and no punishment for producing unsafe food, producers won’t bother.
They particularly will not bother to test the irrigation water. Producers hate testing. If they find something, they have to issue recalls. These are complicated and expensive.
Taylor Fresh Foods, Inc
- Was slow to issue a recall.
- Eventually recalled lettuce products in 27 states.
- Said the FDA apologized for claiming it had found a positive test result (the FDA did not apologize).
- Gave $1 million to president Trump’s campaign (the White House denied involvement). [Source: Bloomberg]
- Called the White House to try to delay having to issue a recall.
- Did all else it could to prevent having to recall.
- Was warned about Cyclospora hazards in 2013 when the FDA did an environmental assessment.
- Is located in Mexico 800 feet away from a public swimming pool facility—a potential source of fecal contamination of irrigation water.
- Has a long history of outbreaks since 2009.
- Claims each outbreak as “an isolated event, our branded products are not involved, we acted quickly.”
What don’t we know?
Food safety attorney Bill Marler presents three maps of the United States.
- Confirmed cases from Taco Bell
- Where the recalled lettuce went (many more states)
- All 2026 Cyclosporiasis cases (practically every state)
This predicts lots more cases to come.
The solution? Treat irrigation water. Require it to be treated.
Where are the CDC and FDA in all of this?
- Decimated by DOGE—huge staff losses in both agencies.
- Weakened by cuts to public health spending.
- Handicapped by delays in implementing a federal food traceability rule.
- Not helped by the USDA’s plans to move food safety labs out of Washington DC.
One root cause: consolidation
Farm Action asks: If it isn’t Taylor Farms, then who? It points out that “Just four companies—Taylor Fresh Foods, Cultrale-Safra, Itochu, and Bonduelle—control 54% of the U.S. fresh-cut salad market.”
The Bigger the Corporation, the Bigger the Diarrhea Outbreak
The fact that lettuce from one farm or one shredding facility could possibly have sickened thousands demonstrates the dangers of concentrating food production among a few large corporations. But the risks of corporate power run even deeper. Taylor Farms and other large produce corporations have long exerted political power to weaken food safety regulations, contributing to crises like this one. Taylor Farms representatives even met with the White House last week in an effort to distance the company from the outbreak…Recent budget cuts to federal and state health agencies further diminish the government’s ability to hold corporations accountable and protect consumers…
Advice to the Produce Industry
- Sales of salads are already down.
- Fix this. Start testing.
Advice to Eaters
- Cook your veggies: The New York Times has a handy recipe for stir-fried lettuce.
- Avoid risky bagged salads and other hazards, and eat other fruits and vegetables.
What is Congress doing?
Writing letters, according to Bill Marler.
But only one of them focuses on traceability. And we still do not know how Cyclospora got into the lettuce.
The post The Cyclospora outbreak: an everyone-is-at-fault system failure: “Lettuce-Gate” appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle.
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Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016). In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).
