The multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak widened Friday to nine states, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had confirmed 1,947 cases across the affected states. What had been a scattered cluster now reads like a national food-safety problem, with Michigan carrying the largest share of illnesses and the count still moving as interviews come in.
That is why people are searching now: the outbreak numbers changed this week, and the search for the source is still active. Gwen Biggerstaff said states are completing interviews with sick people while the CDC fills in the outbreak data, a process that has helped health officials connect cases across Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan.
The FDA said last week that shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from Taylor Farms de Mexico is the likely source, and Taylor Farms voluntarily recalled the product from the U.S. market. Many people who got sick said they had eaten at Taco Bell in June, but Taco Bell pulled lettuce from its menu before the recall, a detail that shows how fast the trail can shift once investigators start matching meals to illness reports.
Even with the lettuce link, the picture is not closed. Kari Irvin said the data now continues to home in on growers that were already identified, but she also said investigators have multiple cyclospora investigations open and are still working to determine whether additional growers played a role. She said that matters because it will help show whether the recall is enough to remove every product that needs to come off the market.
Cyclosporiasis is a foodborne infection caused by a parasite that can cling to fresh produce and spread through water contaminated with human feces. Nearly 12,000 confirmed or suspected cases have been tallied nationwide, including nearly 8,000 infections in Michigan, 2,596 cases in Ohio, 632 in New York since May and 561 in North Carolina during the same period. Friday’s update makes one thing plain: the lettuce recall is an important step, but it has not yet answered whether it is the whole answer.
