22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com Taylor Farms to the outbreak. Taylor Farms responded, saying “Today, FDA apologized to us,” to which the FDA publicly denied. Taylor Farms later deleted its post regarding the apology. Confusion swirled. “This false-positive lab sample DOES NOT change the basis for FDA’s ongoing outbreak investigation or the overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms,” the FDA announced. Meanwhile, state health officials in North Carolina began to say parsley and cilantro appeared to be potentially linked to cases in the state. No announcement has yet been made from the FDA on this link. “We maintain best-in-class cyclospora prevention protocols and invest more than $200 million annually into our independently audited and verified food safety protocols,” a Taylor Fresh Foods spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Weekly. The company says it had temporarily suspended production of all products on July 18, and commissioned independent experts to conduct “top-to-bottom review of food safety processes and protocols in our central Mexico facility.” The Weekly filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FDA seeking all communications and records related to their test results, notifications and findings regarding Taylor Farms and its role in the outbreak. On Aug. 25, the FDA responded: “We are denying your entire request.” The basis for the denial is that the agency is allowed to withhold records “compiled for law enforcement purposes when disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.” Both biological and regulatory reasons have made the parasite particularly difficult to track and contain its spread, according to the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In addition to cuts to staffing and funding for inspections, they argue more of the system is left dependent on voluntary industry participation. Programs like FoodNet, a joint CDC-FDA-USDA-EPA active surveillance system helped with this, building a detailed picture of foodborne illness trends across 10 sentinel sites, covering 16 percent of the national population. In July 2025, reporting cyclospora, along with five other pathogens, became optional. While the CDC still works with local and state agencies to receive reports of disease data, experts argue that reducing FoodNet’s reporting requirements weakens our depth and understanding of trends for cyclospora and other pathogens. An article published in the journal The Lancet Microbe in August took a hard look at gaps in knowledge about the parasite, and also the failures of the system that did not catch it. “The philosophical question posed by this outbreak is fundamental. The greatest victories of public health are invisible: the outbreaks that do not occur and the cases that are never counted,” the authors wrote. “Active surveillance constitutes the foundation upon which this invisible success is built; it is the constant, unglamorous, and costly work of observation that enables intervention at the margins and averts catastrophe.” The oocyst of Cyclospora cayetanensis, a single-celled protozoa, is about 8-10 microns in diameter, or 8 thousandths of a millimeter. Its only known host is the human intestine, where its lifecycle is completed, and an infected person’s poop contains oocysts. The parasite does not spread person to person; that human feces is non-infectious. It might take a week or more outside of the human host for those oocysts to undergo another biological step, sporulation, which occurs only outside of the body. From there, if those sporulated oocysts come in contact with food and are consumed by others, the cycle of infection continues. As the CDC puts it: “Cyclospora spreads when people eat food or drink water that is contaminated with human feces (poop).” It requires a human host to go through its complete lifecycle, and with current research capabilities, scientists cannot replicate it in a test tube. But not only is it hard to study, the protozoa’s thick walls make it resistant to tools like disinfectant. (Cooking does kill it, which is unhelpful for lettuce, berries and other produce eaten raw.) There is a seasonality to cyclosporiasis illnesses, generally May through August. Environmental conditions, notably warmer weather, are favorable for the parasite to grow outside the body, not to mention much of the produce implicated by the organism is harvested during the same months. In June, David Ott of Texas was in Youngstown, Ohio. Twice, on June 18 and 20, he purchased Taco Supremes from Taco Bell store number 027999. By the morning of June 22, he was ill—“excruciating abdominal pain, horrible gas, diarrhea, a constant urge to vomit, low-grade fever, dizziness, nausea and headaches,” according to a lawsuit filed in July. He was hospitalized for two days then sent home with an antibiotic. He tested positive for cyclospora. While the parasite is only very rarely deadly, it is nasty, as Ott’s example— one of thousands—reveals. The 27-year Army veteran is believed to be the first plaintiff of more than a thousand, and counting. Attorney Ron Simon of Ron Simon & Associates based in Texas is representing Ott and another 1,200 plaintiffs in 29 states so far. Ott is suing Taco Bell and Taylor Farms. Simon anticipates the companies implicated will eventually pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to thousands of plaintiffs. “This is the largest outbreak in American history,” he says. (Simon does not file class-action cases, calling that approach “lazy.” “Each of these clients has different medical bills, different amount of time they were sick, and a different story,” he adds. “It is my job to make sure they are heard.”) There is also at least one federal class-action case already filed against Taylor Farms and Taco Bell. The focus is economic losses, rather than personal injury from food poisoning. Lead plaintiff Lawrence Null of West Virginia bought three cheesy beanand-rice burritos with iceberg lettuce at a Taco Bell on June 29. “Plaintiff would not have purchased the products, or would not have paid the price he paid, had he known the lettuce was contaminated and could not lawfully be sold for human consumption,” according to the case. Simon expects that we might learn the most about what happened through the litigation. Meanwhile, investigators in Mexico continue looking into what happened. “The CDC is trying to track all of this down, they “Of all places to cut costs, you are going to cut our food system?” Growers at Boutonnet Farms harvest lettuce in the Salinas Valley. Roughly 46 percent of the company’s crops are lettuce. In July, about halfway through a typical lettuce season, the company discarded roughly 50,000 cartons of head lettuce, along with another 25,000 cartons of romaine. Both biological and regulatory reasons have made the parasite particularly difficult to track and contain its spread. Cyclospora, a microscopic parasite which causes a diarrheal illness, is difficult to study in a laboratory setting. Its only known host is the human intestine, where its lifecycle is completed. DANIEL DREIFUSS COURTESY OF THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL COURTESY OF THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL
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