www.montereycountynow.com SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2026 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 and how to control them. Since, according to news reports, two of three food safety research projects dedicated to study the parasite have been cut. The outbreak has nonetheless put a massive spotlight on the food safety system for produce. While the response and tracing has been spotty— the FDA and CDC are investigating at least six other clusters, as of Aug. 31, for which sources have not yet been confirmed—many experts argue the food-safety standards and regulations are generally robust but not perfect, while prevention research can and should be improved. “Every program can be reviewed for optimization and best use of resources and to refine projects,” Suslow says. “But to just say the whole thing goes away is a loss for science and the public.” Cyclospora is notoriously difficult to detect environmentally and study in the laboratory. Unlike E. coli and salmonella, bacteria that can be cultured and multiplied in a lab setting, cyclospora can’t. Researchers are therefore left trying to find a tiny number of oocysts (microscopic parasite structures) in a given sample of water, soil or produce. Across an entire field, or in the vast quantities of water used in farming, contamination is extremely patchy which makes standard sampling plans underpowered to catch something so sparse. “It’s a needle in a haystack,” says Joelle Mosso, associate vice president of science programs with Western Growers Association. She adds that testing is only as good as the sampling, and with water or produce, very large volumes are needed to find a sample of the parasite, which is likely very diluted. “We need to step back and say, ‘We want the test to teach us something such that we can be better in the future,’ and that may require a very different approach to how we look at testing and technology.” The FDA’s main preventative food-safety system is known as the Produce Safety Rule, under the Food Safety Modernization Act, which provides a framework for evaluating farms that grow produce that is generally eaten raw or receives little processing. The FDA has inspectors that visit farms in person—they do things like walk the fields, interview workers and examine records and practices. Federal regulators also work with state regulatory agencies to conduct inspections. But it was California and Arizona’s Leafy Greens Marketing Agreements (LGMA), which formed a decade before FSMA, that shaped the federal produce safety framework. The E. coli outbreak in 2006 linked to contaminated spinach prompted industry leaders and state regulators to create stricter standards. LGMA built a highly prescriptive code of conduct, requiring farmers to look at things like water quality and worker hygiene, land uses and soil amendments, a model which continues to serve as a template from which the FDA seeks to learn. In August, LGMA staff hosted an educational farm tour in the Salinas Valley for FDA fresh produce safety staff, where attendees learned how LGMA works to minimize risk related to agricultural water. “It’s important to remember that although there is no acceptable number of outbreaks, the industry really does work very hard day in and day out to try to keep food safe,” says Jennifer McEntire, founder of Food Safety Strategy, a food safety consulting firm based near Washington, D.C. “I fear that sometimes with these outbreaks there’s a perception that it’s all about profits.” In California and Arizona, cyclospora hasn’t been as much of a risk historically, Mosso says, emphasizing that when it comes to risk management, risk is dynamic, and isn’t the same everywhere. While the parasite has been less of a risk in California, the LGMA protocols may have an indirect impact on reducing the potential pathways for cyclospora. Active surveillance is needed, according to leading experts, and a critical part of that is long-term research. “There are very few people in the world who are experts in this organism,” Mosso says. “It’s not as simple as just moving a lab and having new people do the work. It takes decades to learn and become an expert in something. “Longer term, we need to look really holistically about our food system and how we want it designed. Do we want to design it such that we just chase outbreaks, or do we design it such that we identify ways to prevent them?” On the first of July, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services announced it was actively investigating a large and growing outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a diarrheal illness. “As of Tuesday, June 30, more than 170 cases have been reported,” the announcement said. “Typically, Michigan only identifies around 50 cyclosporiasis cases per year.” Just over two weeks later, that number had grown to 7,000 cases, spreading to multiple states. It was through media scoops that the public was first alerted to the fact federal officials were investigating Taco Bell and its lettuce supplier, Taylor Farms, as a likely contamination source. What followed was an incredibly rocky beginning to how public health communications should typically run. On July 17, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration linked Taylor Farms de Mexico to the outbreak as the supplier of “shredded iceberg lettuce used by Taco Bell locations where sick people ate before becoming ill.” Two days later, the FDA retracted a separate test result, saying the finding was a false positive, but still linked “Do we want to chase outbreaks, or identify ways to prevent them?” Although no product from California was linked to this summer’s cyclospora outbreak, lettuce operations of all sizes were affected across the region. DANIEL DREIFUSS
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==