The cyclosporiasis outbreak tied to shredded lettuce sold at Taco Bell has now been reported in nine states, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday that about 2,000 people in that cluster had been sickened. The outbreak now spans Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan.
The new count matters because Taco Bell deals are drawing fresh attention from people trying to figure out whether the chain’s menu changes and the lettuce recall answer the whole question or only part of it. The fast-food chain pulled the affected lettuce from its menu, and Taylor Fresh Foods recalled all of its iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico, but the CDC is still tracking whether the contamination reached other states beyond the outbreak list.
The outbreak now sits inside a much larger national picture. Across the U.S., the CDC has recorded almost 12,000 confirmed and probable cyclosporiasis cases in 41 states, including at least 308 hospitalizations and no deaths. Since May 1, the agency said about 11,500 confirmed and suspected cases had been reported, with 4,173 confirmed and another 7,400 under investigation. Health officials said a large multistate outbreak began in the Midwest in late June, and last week they linked an outbreak in five states to the shredded lettuce sold at Taco Bell and supplied by Taylor Fresh Foods before Friday’s expansion to nine states.
Michigan has been the most striking outlier in the outbreak tally. As of July 24, the state had reported 8,176 cyclosporiasis cases and 160 hospitalizations, far above the roughly 2,000 cases now counted in the Taco Bell-linked nine-state cluster. Ohio has reported over 2,500 cases, while North Carolina has had more than 500 since May and New York more than 600. That spread shows why the Taco Bell-linked outbreak cannot be read as the whole story: the CDC is still investigating other possible sources of the larger outbreak and whether tainted lettuce went to other states.
Cyclosporiasis is caused by Cyclospora cayetanensis, a microscopic parasite carried in human feces, and people are infected when they consume food or water contaminated with fecal particles. Fresh fruits and vegetables are common culprits, and produce can become contaminated when it is grown in soil or washed with contaminated water. Because the parasite takes one to two weeks outside the body to become infectious, person-to-person spread is highly unlikely. For now, the clearest answer is that the Taco Bell lettuce recall has closed one known path, but the national outbreak investigation is still open.
