An outbreak of cyclosporiasis, potentially involving more than 11,000 cases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) count, has exposed what experts describe as critical vulnerabilities in the US food safety system. The illness, caused by the microscopic parasite cyclospora, has led to over 300 hospitalizations, though no deaths have been reported.
Scope of the outbreak
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating six outbreaks, including a large nine-state cluster affecting Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Michigan has been the hardest hit, with more than 7,000 cases. The sole identified source is iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico, prompting a voluntary recall affecting restaurants in 27 states and grocery stores in 15. Taco Bell, linked to cases in nine states, has stopped using the lettuce.
Systemic challenges
“What’s surprising to me is the magnitude of it, and how it highlights all these system vulnerabilities,” said Barbara Kowalcyk, an associate professor at George Washington University and director of the school’s Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security. Cyclospora spreads through food or water contaminated with human feces, with outbreaks occurring annually during what health workers call “cyclospora season.” This year’s spike in cases is unusually large.
The tracking of foodborne illnesses relies on a patchwork of state and federal efforts. Only 47 states require cyclosporiasis to be reported to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS); in others, like Pennsylvania, reporting is voluntary. The CDC assumes a six-week lag between illness onset and case receipt, and confirmed cases require both lab tests and patient interviews. Michigan, however, reports all lab-confirmed cases even without interviews, contributing to discrepancies between state and federal figures.
Impact of funding cuts
The outbreak occurs amid significant strain on public health infrastructure. The Trump administration implemented major cuts in 2025, slashing pandemic-era grants to state and local health departments by $11.4 billion. The CDC lost 25–30% of its staff, and its specialized parasitic disease team was reduced from 11 to three people, partly due to funding losses from USAID, which also faced deep cuts.
“Ideally, we would identify and solve these outbreaks when they’re small, you don’t want an outbreak of 11,000 people,” Kowalcyk said. “It’s just symptomatic of the fact we have cut public health funding over the last two years to an area we haven’t fully funded to begin with.”
