Infection hazard

Consumer, industry groups ask Senate committee to restore CDC tracking efforts.Federal public health officials have updated their reports on the huge Cyclospora parasite outbreak that is sweeping the country, with more than 2,000 more patients logged in the past week.The count now stands at 6,707 laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency is aware of more than 11,500 additional cases that require more investigation or confirmation testing. A week ago the CDC reported 4,173 infected people across 41 states.In a separate outbreak, the CDC has not updated its count since July 24. At that time the agency was reporting 1,947 patients across nine states. Those illnesses are related to Taylor Farms shredded iceberg lettuce grown in Central Mexico. The company initiated a recall on July 17, but most if not all of the implicated lettuce would have been either consumed of out of date by then. The CDC reported that some of the sick people reported eating iceberg lettuce on menu items bought at Taco Bell restaurants in the nine states. Taco Bell stopped using Taylor Farms lettuce. The nine states involved in this outbreak are Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.Overall, Michigan was reporting 9,680 on July 28, up from 9,253 on July 27. Ohio has not updated its count in several days, but in its last update it reported more than 2,000 sick people. The state health department in Indiana reported on July 28 that the count in the state was at 954. It is not clear whether all of the illnesses reported by states in the nine-state outbreak are related to the TacoBell outbreak or the other outbreaks the CDC is tracking.The CDC says the discrepancy between its patient count and that of the states is because of the lag time it takes between when a state confirms an illness and when that illness is added to the CDC’s count. Another reason for the difference in the counts is because the CDC stopped tracking Cyclospora illnesses beginning July 1, 2025.In relation to the FoodNet cut, a coalition of consumer and industry groups has asked the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Education, and Related Agencies to restore the FoodNet tracking of the illnesses cut on July 1, 2025.Those illnesses are Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio and Yersinia. In accordance with cuts dictated by the Department of Health and Human Services, only Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli remain within the FoodNet system.The coalition cites static funding as another problem the committee should address.“For years, FoodNet has taken on more tasks without correspondin.budgetary increases. For the past decade, FoodNet funding levels have been flat at $5 to $6 million per year, despite increasing salary and laboratory costs. To address this funding discrepancy, CDC has sought to realign expectations of its partners at FDA, USDA, and the FoodNet sites with respect to FoodNet,” the coalition letter states.. . . FoodNet offers a return on investment that justifies its price tag. Total funding for FoodNet surveillance sites and CDC, estimated in 2015 to cost less than $7 million, is several orders of magnitude lower than the economic impacts of the illnesses monitored by the program. Campylobacter infections alone are estimated to cause up to $6.8 billion in economic damages every year. By curtailing active surveillance of these infections and those from the six other pathogens recently removed from FoodNet’s reporting requirements— which collectively cause an estimated 2.1 million illnesses each year, including 11,000 hospitalizations and 418 deaths — regulatory agencies and industry alike will lose a critical tool to evaluate their prevention efforts and reduce the overall burden of foodborne disease.”Anyone who has developed symptoms of Cyclospora infection, and has reason to believe they have been exposed to the parasite, should seek medical attention. Specific tests are required and antibiotics are used to fight the parasite.Cyclospora infection can cause severe abdominal pain, severe watery diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, body aches, and fatigue. Symptoms can develop between two and 14 days after exposure. Though symptoms can be severe enough to send people to the hospital, it's rare for people to die from Cyclospora infections. Symptoms can last for a month or more and can reoccur for several more months if not treated.
Cyclospora is a type of protozoa, which is a single-celled organism. It is transmitted when people somehow ingest contaminated feces, typically through contaminated food or water. It can be spread through microscopic amounts of human waste. Unlike E. coli and Salmonella, which can also be spread from animal fecal matter, Cyclospora can only be spread by human waste.Previous U.S. outbreaks of cyclosporiasis have been linked to various types of fresh produce, including lettuce, basil, cilantro, mesclun lettuce, raspberries, and snow peas.Food safety experts say there's no evidence that washing the produce will remove the parasite because it becomes embedded in the flesh of the produce.

The coalition includes:

Active Food Safety
Alliance for Advanced Sanitation
American Bakers Association
American Frozen Food Institute
American Spice Trade Association
Antibiotic Resistance Action Center, George Washington University
Beyond Celiac
Center for Food Safety
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Consumer Federation of America
Consumer Reports
Creme Global
FMI
Food Animal Concerns Trust
Food & Water Watch
Food Safety Strategy, LLC
Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security, George Washington University
Government Accountability Project’s Food Integrity Campaign
International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA)
Meat Institute
Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University
National Confectioners Association
National Consumers League
National Environmental Health Association
Stop Foodborne Illness