[Thanks to Elder DZ for informing us of this Federal corruption scandal]
Cyclospora Outbreak
The timeline:
2025: More than 3,000 public health workers have left the CDC through firings, forced retirements and attrition, roughly a quarter of its workforce by the end of last year. – The Guardian
2025: The federal government made tracking the Cyclospora parasite largely optional. In July 2025, the CDC scaled back its mandatory FoodNet surveillance network from eight pathogens to just two (Salmonella and E. coli), removing mandatory tracking for Cyclospora. – The Guardian
March 26, 2025: Taylor Farms donates $1 million to pro-tRump super PAC MAGA Inc.
Early April, 2026: The FDA has extended the compliance date for the Food Traceability Rule (FSMA 204) by 30 months, moving the enforcement deadline from January 20, 2026, to July 20, 2028. Congress has made this delay binding by restricting federal funding for its enforcement until that date.
May 1, 2026: The official start of the Cyclospora season[1]
Mid-to-Late May 2026: Earliest reported illnesses associated with the current outbreak wave start appearing.
July 14, 2026: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases a formal Health Advisory notifying clinicians of 1,645 confirmed cases and 5,100 pending cases.
July 17, 2026: Taylor Farms de Mexico initiates a voluntary recall of all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico supplied to retail stores and restaurants.
July 16, 2026: Executives from MAGA-donor Taylor Farms met officials from the White House and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last Thursday, July 16 – the Daily Beast
July 19, 2026: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Sunday that laboratory experts re-checked lettuce sample results from Taylor Farms in an investigation into an outbreak of the cyclospora parasite and concluded the finding should be considered a false positive. – The Guardian
[1] Cyclospora season: mark your calendars!
The Daily Beast
One of America’s largest produce suppliers visited the White House days before the administration walked back a warning suggesting the company’s lettuce could be linked to an outbreak of explosive diarrhea.
Federal investigators traced the outbreak to restaurants including Taco Bell, which gets its lettuce from Taylor Farms.
But in a bizarre twist, the lettuce supplier issued a statement on Sunday saying the FDA had apologized after it emerged that tests of lettuce had resulted in a “false positive”.
As Snopes previously reported, The Washington Post published a story July 16, which relied on anonymous sources, reporting that federal investigators had traced the cyclosporiasis outbreak to Taylor Farms. The FDA announced it had traced the outbreak to contaminated iceberg lettuce packaged by Taylor Farms at a facility in central Mexico the following day and Taylor Farms announced a voluntary recall of such products.
Then, on July 19, both the FDA and Taylor Farms released statements announcing that a test on a sample of Taylor Farms lettuce produced a false positive result for cyclospora. Both releases noted that the FDA “has not identified a single positive product test result for Cyclospora.”
However, in a July 20 post on X (archived), the FDA said that despite the false positive test, there was “overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms.”
The FDA publicly identified shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico as the source of the cyclosporiasis outbreak on July 17, 2026, and the company voluntarily recalled the affected products.
On July 19, the FDA announced that a laboratory finding in a sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms was a false positive. (This false positive sample was not part of Taylor Farms’ original voluntary recall.)
“As of July 19, 2026, there are no confirmed positive sample results for product testing for Cyclospora,” the FDA said.
But the agency clarified further on July 20 that there was still “overwhelming epidemiological data” supporting Taylor Farms’ voluntary recall of lettuce and that the FDA’s investigation into the outbreak continues to “converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico.”
If the obfuscatory messaging and attempts to duck transparency by the seemingly concerted efforts of the FDA and Taylor Farms aren’t yet painting a clear picture, consider also that Taylor Farms (as Taylor Fresh Foods Inc.) donated $1 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC on March 26, 2025, less than a week after the agency announced that it would delay enforceability of the FTC until 2028. Taylor Farms has donated more than $3.8 million to conservative groups, and CEO and founder Bruce Taylor has personally donated more than $1 million to Republican-aligned PACs over the past two decades.
Then, on Sunday, the story got much stranger when the FDA announced that the sample provided by “Taylor Farms de Mexico,” which had initially tested positive, was actually a false positive. Taylor Farms quickly issued an audacious statement: “Today, FDA apologized to us,” which is not what the agency did. Did the FDA run interference for Taylor Farms? That seems exceedingly likely. Did it confuse the public? Definitely.
Newsweek
Trump Admin Denies Colluding With Taylor Farms Over Cyclospora: ‘FAKE NEWS’
The FDA had said on Friday that its investigation had identified a single supplier, Taylor Farms de Mexico, of shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations across five states—Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia—as the source of a cyclospora outbreak in those states. But then on Sunday, the FDA said the result had been a false positive, while Taylor Farms said it had received an apology from the FDA. FDA officials said on Monday there was no official apology.
