{"id":16868,"date":"2026-07-27T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T02:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=16868"},"modified":"2026-07-27T10:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T02:00:14","slug":"lettuce-explain-cyclospora-outbreaks-test-trump-administration-messaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=16868","title":{"rendered":"Lettuce explain: Cyclospora outbreaks test Trump administration messaging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"446\" height=\"297\" src=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/116.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16869\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/116.png 446w, https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/116-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 446px) 100vw, 446px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Trump administration is facing a key messaging test as it tries to stop potentially multiple outbreaks of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two months in and thousands of cases later, the outbreak has become a communications nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Experts say confusing messages and a lack of central leadership have left the public in the dark about what produce is safe and distrustful of the Trump administration\u2019s public health response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Any outbreak of foodborne illness requires careful public communication, experts said. There needs to be a balance in telling people which products to avoid without causing a panic and scaring people away from eating fresh vegetables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But many Americans are continuing to wonder what they are supposed to do. They don\u2019t know which lettuce is safe, and they don\u2019t know if they can trust the Trump administration to be truthful about the outbreaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Asked on Friday whether it was safe for Americans to eat lettuce, President Trump said he hadn\u2019t thought about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou need someone to set and guide expectations, and I don\u2019t think they have that right now at the federal level,\u201d said Glen Nowak, director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at the University of Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou need expertise. You\u2019re hampered by acting directors or not even knowing who the director is. That\u2019s a huge handicap,\u201d Nowak said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhere has CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] leadership been? There\u2019s not one federal leader out there to explain what\u2019s happening, or not happening,\u201d said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Health officials are still investigating the potential source or sources of the illness but say they are making progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are far more cases of cyclosporiasis this year than is normal, even if they aren\u2019t all outbreaks. The country usually sees a few hundred to a thousand cases at most in a given year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nationwide, the CDC has confirmed or is investigating more than 11,500 cases of cyclosporiasis, though not every case is connected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cyclosporiasis, the disease caused by the cyclospora parasite, leads to diarrhea, with frequent bowel movements. Other common symptoms include loss of appetite, weight loss, stomach cramps and pain. While it isn\u2019t typically life-threatening, it can cause serious complications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared the outbreak was \u201cunder control\u201d earlier this week and said any criticism that the agency\u2019s response is being hampered by funding cuts was \u201cinvalid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have done extensive forensics, epidemiological forensics, and we\u2019ve identified the source of the outbreak,\u201d Kennedy said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have zeroed in on the same iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico as the likely culprit behind an outbreak that has now impacted nine states and infected nearly 2,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The lettuce came from Taylor Farms, the world\u2019s largest producer of salads and fresh-cut vegetables. The company issued a recall of all lettuce from that Mexican facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But cyclospora is a notoriously difficult parasite to track, and cases are climbing. There are multiple outbreaks across the country, and they are not all linked to the same source.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The heightened attention on cyclosporiasis is also likely contributing to higher case rates, experts said. More cases being detected doesn\u2019t necessarily translate to more cases being spread \u2014 investigators may be closing in on a link, and the long lag time means someone showing up as part of an outbreak now could have been infected several weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf I see somebody in my office with diarrhea, they\u2019re probably pretty likely to have eaten some sort of fresh produce in the last two weeks. So, I\u2019m going to check the special, expensive test for cyclosporiasis, whereas a year ago I probably wouldn\u2019t,\u201d said Dr. Tonya Crook, an infectious diseases physician at Penn State Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scientists need highly specialized tests to detect it in food. The illness is caused by a parasite, so it can\u2019t be cultured in a lab. In addition, people can get sick weeks after eating contaminated food, so by the time health officials are even aware of an outbreak, the food that needed testing will likely have been eaten or thrown away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scientists often rely on interviews with people who were sick to try to determine what they ate to trace an outbreak to its source. A positive test result is rare, and to date, no samples from the Taylor Farms facility in Mexico have tested positive for cyclospora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But experts said officials haven\u2019t done enough to communicate that uncertainty to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It didn\u2019t help when the FDA announced that a sample of iceberg lettuce outside the recall tested positive for cyclospora. Such a discovery would have major implications for the outbreak, but the agency reversed course the next day, saying the result was a false positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taylor Farms then said the FDA \u201capologized to us\u201d for the error. FDA officials contradicted that statement to reporters, but the confusion remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s a huge communication misstep,\u201d said Donald Schaffner, chair of food science at Rutgers University. \u201cThey rushed to judgement without doing the confirmation their own protocols require.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The FDA hasn\u2019t said how the false positive came about, and there was confusion among the public about whether the agency even still suspected products from Taylor Farms were responsible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Food safety experts are quick to note that false laboratory test results are always a possibility, but they say this nuance is being lost amid the current state of communication coming from federal authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think it\u2019s important for people to understand that all laboratory methods have a false positive and a false negative rate,\u201d Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University, told The Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFrom my perspective, one of the things that\u2019s contributing to kind of the whole issue that\u2019s going on right now, which I think is broader than FDA, is a lot of the communication staff at FDA and CDC were let go as part of the DOGE cuts,\u201d Kowalcyk added, referring to the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration is facing a key messaging test as it tries to stop potentially multiple outbreaks of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic illness. Two months in and thousands of cases later, the outbreak has become a communications nightmare. Experts say confusing messages and a lack of central leadership have left the public in the dark about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[61],"class_list":["post-16868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-usa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lettuce explain: Cyclospora outbreaks test Trump administration messaging - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=16868\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lettuce explain: Cyclospora outbreaks test Trump administration messaging - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Trump administration is facing a key messaging test as it tries to stop potentially multiple outbreaks of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic illness. 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