President Donald Trump has a major problem with explosive diarrhea on his hands.

On Tuesday, HHS secretary Robert Kennedy Jr declared that the ongoing outbreak of cyclosporiasis — a non-lethal but extremely unpleasant gut infection caused by the Cyclospora cayetanensis parasite — was “under control.”

“We’ve identified the source of the outbreak, and the companies that are involved have implemented a recall,” he said, without elaborating any further or naming the companies.

But considering that cases are still rising, the situation is very much not looking under control. According to a Tuesday update by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 4,173 laboratory-confirmed domestic cases of cyclosporiasis since May 1. There are an additional 7,400 cases that have yet to be confirmed, many of which were reported in Michigan and Ohio.

Those tallies appear to be underestimating the scale of the problem considerably. In Michigan alone, state officials warned on Wednesday that there were 7,171 cyclosporiasis cases since June 22, up from 6,571 on July 21, suggesting the outbreak is only getting started.

Cases reported by the Ohio Department of Health tripled to 1,192 cases in its July 16 update, compared to June 20 — another sign that the situation is getting worse, not better.

And that’s just the data we know about. Identifying the parasite is notoriously difficult in a lab, making it particularly difficult to trace, and requiring extensive detective work by health officials.

Yet the public messaging regarding news about the outbreak has been severely lacking and downright confusing. Over the same weekend, the Food and Drug Administration said it had determined the culprit, bagged shredded lettuce ⁠supplied by Taylor Farms, one of Taco Bell’s lead suppliers — only to claim that the results were a “false positive” less than a day later.

Taylor Farms, which continues to “voluntarily” recall its tainted lettuce, celebrated the update, claiming the FDA had “apologized to us” in a since-deleted Monday statement.

Just hours later, the situation flipped on its head once again, with the FDA saying that “FDA’s traceback investigation and outbreak data continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico.”

There are plenty of reasons to be highly skeptical of the government narrative. The Trump administration maintains a cozy relationship with Taylor Farms, a company that has made a major donation to Trump’s political action committee, MAGA Inc.

The White House has since vehemently denied accusations from the media that it may be colluding with Taylor Farms behind the scenes, with the Health and Human Services Department calling them “FAKE NEWS” in a Monday statement — the kind of knee-jerk reaction that’s bound to invite even more scrutiny.

Then there’s the Trump administration’s gutting of key public health programs that could make truly getting the cyclosporiasis outbreak under control. Budget cuts have led to massive layoffs at the USDA, CDC, and FDA. Key food inspection and surveillance programs ahve been terminated. A team specifically dedicated to tracking cyclospora was slashed by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency last year from 11 to just three people.

In short, while Kennedy claims the situation is under control, there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. Cases are on the rise and even the evidence behind FDA’s leading suspect appears to be shaky, by the agency’s own admission.

It’s the perfect storm of short-sighted austerity measures, chummy business relationships, and poor public messaging by officials who are unable to speak from a place of authority and conviction.

Put simply, Trump’s diarrhea troubles are likely only getting started.

More on the outbreak: Trump’s Explosive Diarrhea Scandal Is Getting Worse and Worse

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Most of the nation may want nothing to do with Taylor Farms and its shredded iceberg lettuce, which was recalled in dozens of states for potentially being contaminated with a parasite that turns your bowels into a garden hose.

Not so for the Amazon-owned Whole Foods, which is either hoping to capitalize on the controversy or proceeding as if nothing happened. 

Over the weekend, we noticed that one of the grocery retailer’s locations in New York City was selling Taylor Farms’ shredded iceberg at a steep 50 percent discount — which, from an optics point of view, is absolutely extraordinary.

Is this an indictment of our country’s ruthless opportunism, and by extension, capitalism at large? Is it a total nonstory? If you’re unlucky enough, you’ll have plenty of time to ponder those questions on the porcelain throne. Many on social media just seemed to think it was a mix of funny and appalling.

“The cost is on the back end,” someone joked. “Discount diarrhea,” chimed another. Others were outraged that the location was still selling the stuff.

“They’re seriously not pulling that off the shelf,” one fumed. “For SHAME.”

wow at this incredible deal

— jon christian (@jonchristian.net) 2026-07-19T19:15:11.425Z

The Food and Drug Administration narrowed the culprit down to a Taylor Farms facility in Mexico. So far, Taylor Farms has voluntarily recalled its Mexico products containing shredded iceberg lettuce from 27 states, including Michigan — the epicenter of the outbreak, where over 6,100 people are believed to be infected — Florida, Texas, and North Carolina.

New York state is not currently one of them, so Whole Foods isn’t obligated to pull the products from its shelves (or at least as obligated as is possible under what is technically a voluntary recall). Still, the recall has been expanded at least once already, so it’s not impossible that it could include more states in the near future. A Whole Foods representative declined to go on record, but insisted that the bag of lettuce in question was sourced from the USA, not Mexico, adding that the chain doesn’t carry any of the recalled products.

Tracing the provenance of food products can be pretty byzantine. It’s not clear at this point if Taylor Farms supplied lettuce to companies in states affected by the recall who then distributed that lettuce again more widely, the New York Times noted. Not even the FDA has “distribution information or a list of customers who received” the recalled product since Taylor Farms hasn’t provided it, it said on its website — something it’s not legally required to do.

It’s even more confusing to the public. Taylor Farms doesn’t share which stores and restaurants it directly supplied its products too, so consumers have to do their own detective work, or rely on those locations voluntarily declaring that they used those products.

All that’s to say that there’s a lot of uncertainty over what lettuce is safe and what isn’t. The safest thing to do in this environment, probably, is to just abstain from shredded lettuce entirely. But you have to admit, isn’t that Whole Foods 50 percent discount tempting? Maybe if you’re used to paying outrageous prices for a bag of mushy leaves.

More on the outbreak: Taylor Farms Made Huge Donation to Trump Group After Loosening of Rules That Could Have Prevented Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak

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On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had linked the outbreak of cyclosporiasis, an infection notorious for inducing explosive diarrhea, to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms that was supplied to Taco Bell. 

Per the reporting, Taco Bell said it was voluntarily pulling the lettuce from select states where it received the contaminated produce: Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. An announcement from the CDC warned the public not to eat food items with shredded lettuce from Taco Bell, but hasn’t identified Taylor Farms as the source.

But while Taco Bell may have served the tainted lettuce, it would be remiss to lay all of the blame on the fast food chain (although one aggrieved customer is already suing it after contracting the illness).

The contamination occurred at the farms or facilities where the food was processed, from a single supplier in Mexico, Food and Drug Administration officials said. The supplier, Taylor Farms, has been involved in previous outbreaks, including another outbreak of cyclosporiasis in a salad mix in 2013.

Taco Bell, to its credit, also immediately pulled its ingredients from some of its locations last week as soon as it learned about the situation, according to local reports.

And then there’s the broader political context that many experts are drawing attention to: how the Trump administration has slashed funding to the CDC and paralyzed the nation’s food safety bodies.

Last February, shortly after Trump took office, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) dissolved its National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods, which provided scientific guidance on food safety policy. Ryan Cooper at The Prospect notes that the committee was working on advice for foodborne illness outbreaks before being terminated. The FDA also shut down its National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.

Not spared during the wave of cuts that wreaked the federal government, the USDA lost over 20,000 workers last year, with 913 of them coming from its Food Safety Inspection Service.

Last year, the CDC — which has lost some 3,000 employees under Trump — scaled back its food surveillance program called FoodNet that monitored eight common foodborne pathogens, changing it so that surveillance of the cyclospora parasite that causes cyclosporiasis was optional.

Dan Jernigan, a former director of CDC’s Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told the Washington Post that the decision was made because funding for food safety had not been maintained over the past few years. That the US is now on track to have more cyclospora cases this year than any previous year in history is likely no coincidence.

Other incidents show how the administration has taken a recklessly laissez faire approach to public health. The US’s worst measles outbreak this century occurred after Trump had hollowed out the CDC — and after health secretary RFK had spent years heavily promoting anti-vaccine rhetoric. The CDC also reportedly fired its ship inspectors last year, a decision that came under scrutiny during a deadly hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship. Some experts estimate that hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of children have died as the result of Trump dismantling USAID, which funded emergency food assistance programs and HIV response across the globe.

Jernigan left the agency last August in protest of Trump ousting its then director Susan Monarez and the policies of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. But he said that the Trump cuts would have little impact on the ongoing outbreak, adding that FoodNet wasn’t designed for real-time outbreak detection or response.

As the WaPo reporting notes, federal and state health authorities have insisted that the cyclosporiasis investigation hasn’t been impeded because the parasite is still reportable to a separate national database. Still, Jernigan said that scaling back FoodNet wasn’t inconsequential.

“Routine outbreak investigators are the firefighters responding to a specific blaze. FoodNet is the citywide system that tracks how often fires occur and whether the overall risk is rising,” he told WaPo. “Removing cyclosporiasis from FoodNet does not take the firefighters away from the current outbreak, but it does remove part of the system that tells us how large the problem is and whether it is getting worse over time.”

Cyclosporiasis is a particularly tough illness to track.  Symptoms can take weeks to present, making it difficult for health officials to trace back where sufferers were infected. A recent Wired piece drew attention to how many people may be wrongly misdiagnosing themselves as news of the diarrhea dilemma spread across social media.

Linda Yancey, an infectious disease specialist at Memorial Hermann Health System in Texas, warned that large outbreaks like this could become more common.

“Unfortunately with so many budget cuts, every federal agency is hurting for personnel and resources,” she told Time Magazine earlier this month. “We could be at greater risk of foodborne infections because the FDA is so understaffed and underfunded right now.”

So far, Michigan, the epicenter of the outbreak, has alone tallied over 4,300 cases of infection, while nationwide there could be 7,000 cases, though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has only confirmed 1,600 of them.

More on parasites: If You’ve Been Having Explosive Diarrhea, You May Want to Read This

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Apocryphal tales of its meals causing the runs have plagued Taco Bell since time immemorial. But this latest parasitic outbreak is something else entirely.

As the Washington Post reports, federal and state authorities are investigating whether the fast food chain is behind the outbreak of explosive diarrhea cases across the country — further cementing its scatological legacy.

The illness, caused by the cyclosporiasis parasite, has sickened as many as 5,100 people across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Michigan, which appears to be the epicenter of the outbreak, over 3,700 people have been infected, state authorities said.

Taco Bell’s suspected role in the outbreak comes after reports that the chain’s Michigan locations began pulling some of its ingredients. Signs in front of the restaurants stated that they were no longer serving lettuce, cilantro, onion, pico de gallo, and guacamole due to a “nationwide recall,” though what recall they were referring to is unclear.

Health officials have so far struggled to narrow down how the parasite is spreading. While usually found on fresh produce, symptoms can take weeks to manifest, making it difficult to trace back to the source.

Lettuce has emerged as one of the likeliest culprits. In an update this week, Michigan’s chief medical executive Natasha Bagdasarian said that “early information has shown lettuce as a common product that regularly comes up during the investigation.”

“Although we do not have a definite product identified as the source of the outbreak, we want to let Michiganders know what we have learned so far so they can take steps to protect their families,” Bagdasarian added.

Federal authorities haven’t singled out any veggies yet, though acting Food and Drug Administration director Don Prater acknowledged Michigan’s fixation on lettuce.

“What I can say at this point is that we’re continuing our traceback investigation on multiple produce items, including the lettuce,” he said, per WaPo.

So far, no nationwide recalls have been made related to the outbreak. One person familiar with the federal investigation, however, praised Taco Bell’s response. 

“It’s good the chain has already voluntarily stopped serving a number of items,” they told the newspaper. They added that some who became sick said they didn’t eat at the chain, suggesting that it’s not the only one responsible.

More on parasites: If You’ve Been Having Explosive Diarrhea, You May Want to Read This

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As an explosive diarrhea outbreak splatters across the country, Taco Bell is preparing for the worst.

This week, the fast food chain — or at least its locations in Michigan — began temporarily pulling some of its staple ingredients to help stop the spread of cyclosporiasis, a foodborne parasite that causes sufferers to go running to the toilet even more often than a standard Taco Bell meal might.

Many of your favorite menu items, like the Crunchwrap Supreme and the Cantina Chicken bowl, may be imperiled.

“We are currently unable to sell Lettuce, Cilantro Onion, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole due to a nationwide recall,” a notice posted at locations in Metro Detroit reads, Michigan outlet WWJ reported. “Any items ordered that normally come with these items WILL NOT contain them,” it stressed.

It doesn’t sound like any cases of cyclosporiasis-related explosive diarrhea have been linked to Taco Bell yet, so the fast food chain is probably just trying to err on the side of caution.

So far, nearly 3,000 people have been infected with the foodborne parasite, with around 86 hospitalized, NBC News reported, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Michigan appears to be one of the epicenters, accounting for over half the reported cases so far.

Cyclosporiasis symptoms are pretty gnarly, but usually not life threatening. It can cause stomach cramps and a lengthy bout of explosive diarrhea. The intensifier is warranted: one sufferer who spoke to the New York Post was in awe of the “amount of pressure when it comes out,” adding that the “force is crazy.”

No food items have been recalled yet related to the outbreak. The virus is usually found on fresh produce, but we don’t know what specific food items are spreading it or the supplier they come from. Cyclosporiasis is notoriously hard to track because the symptoms usually don’t present until at least a week after the contaminated food is ingested.

They may not all come from the same source, the CDC cautioned, and what we’re seeing could be a cluster of unrelated outbreaks.

To protect yourself, the best thing to do is thoroughly wash and cook your veggies, which you should still eat. And maybe skip on the fast food.

More on Taco Bell: Taco Bell’s Attempt to Replace Drive-Thru Employees With AI Is Not Going Well

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The floating device tests water, then disinfects it without batteries or chemicals.

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