The United States is suffering through a nationwide diarrhea outbreak, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on Tuesday that President Donald Trump and his trillionaire buddy Elon Musk are to blame.
Cyclospora bacteria causing explosive diarrhea has been introduced to the U.S. food system, and the Food and Drug Administration has been unable to lock down the source and extent of the problem.
Ocasio-Cortez was asked about the linkage between the cyclosporiasis outbreak and efforts by the Trump administration to cut spending and staffing related to food safety issues.
“There’s a direct correlation here,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “A year ago, you had DOGE ripping through the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and FDA. They laid off about a quarter million people, and a lot of these people are responsible for food inspections, drug inspections, our core governmental infrastructure.”
The Democrat from New York explained that detecting outbreaks like the one currently causing distress for thousands of Americans “is exactly what these people’s jobs were.”
Related | Well, sh-t: Trump’s gutted FDA can’t find source of diarrhea parasite
She noted that in the wake of cuts made by Trump and Musk via projects like the Department of Government Efficiency, which were touted for purportedly saving money, “we’re spending even more” to address the problem.
At least 1,645 cases of cyclosporiasis, which is an illness that causes watery or explosive diarrhea, have been logged by the CDC and more than 5,000 cases are under investigation.
The agencies faced severe cuts in the months following Trump’s decision to greenlight the DOGE project, which he then appointed Musk—one of his major campaign donors—to run.
So far, more than 4,200 employees have lost their jobs at the FDA.
Advocates warned of the danger to food safety early on. In a joint statement released in February 2025, a coalition of food and consumer safety groups said that a diminished food safety agency would jeopardize the Trump administration’s claims that they wanted to improve nutrition and ingredient safety for the public.
“Adequate resources are critical not only for outbreak response but also for developing and updating food safety standards, providing science-based industry guidance, and ensuring a well-trained federal-state inspection force to protect the integrity of our food system,” they said in a statement that has turned out to be prophetic.
DOGE’s actions ultimately led to a mess, with secure government systems compromised, the gutting of USAID for vulnerable foreign populations who are now dying, and the security of American food compromised. The end result: death, diarrhea, and other critical ailments causing pain and suffering.
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