President Donald Trump’s second term has had many successes, but it has also faced several emergencies and other issues he likely didn’t anticipate.
One of the most recent emergencies is a Cyclospora outbreak linked to lettuce, most of which has already been pulled from the market.
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But now, there’s a new outbreak of Cyclospora, the parasite that can cause severe gastrointestinal illness, including intense diarrhea, under investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and has not been linked to the previously recalled lettuce.
Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said Sunday the agency does not yet have the outbreak of cyclosporiasis under control.
“I don’t think it’s under control yet, per se. I think that they’ve done a good job, the FDA has, isolating this to central Mexico and some specific farms as well,” Gottlieb told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan during an appearance on “Face the Nation.”
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He later added, “I don’t think this is fully under control yet because we don’t know for sure that that’s the only growing region where this is coming from. But it does seem to be the case at this point.”
Officials from the FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multiple states have linked iceberg lettuce from central Mexico to cyclospora outbreaks that have caused at least 1,947 cases in nine states. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
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The CDC says nearly 100 people have been hospitalized with cyclospora, but no deaths have been attributed to the parasite. The illness causes watery diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss, cramping, and bloating.
The FDA said the infections are likely linked to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms, grown in central Mexico. That conclusion was based on epidemiological evidence, including interviews, and no produce had tested positive for cyclospora as of Friday.
In a statement, Taylor Farms said Friday it removed “all potentially implicated product from the marketplace” and “issued an even broader recall of all iceberg lettuce sourced from the region” once federal officials raised questions about the source of the outbreak.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said earlier this week his department—which oversees the FDA and CDC—had the outbreak “under control.”
“We have done extensive forensics, epidemiological forensics, and we’ve identified the source of the outbreak,” Kennedy added.
But Gottlieb said the FDA has had “challenges with communications” during the outbreak.
Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas has led the agency since Marty Makary stepped down in May.
“I think FDA has done a good job isolating this, and they were fast to do this,” Gottlieb told Brennan.
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“This is a hard pathogen to detect. There’s no really good test for it, so you can’t test for it in food. But there hasn’t been as much communication from the agency as you might expect,” Gottlieb added.
The source of the latest outbreak has not yet been identified, though the FDA said it is conducting traceback investigations to determine where the contamination originated.
The agency currently has six active Cyclospora outbreak investigations.
Of those, only the outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce—which has resulted in more than 11,000 confirmed or suspected cases nationwide—has been traced to a specific source.
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Two other outbreaks, involving two and eight illnesses, respectively, have been closed, Nexstar reported.
Cases of cyclosporiasis, the illness caused by Cyclospora infection, are most commonly reported between May and August.
Although infections can occur through contaminated food or water while traveling abroad, domestic cases are more frequently associated with fresh produce.
For example, investigators traced an outbreak that sickened at least 69 people last year to contaminated parsley.
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Sources for outbreaks aren’t always easily identified, however.
Investigations involving Cyclospora outbreaks “take a significant amount of time,” Gwen Biggerstaff, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, said earlier this month.
Symptoms can take anywhere from two days to two weeks to appear after exposure, making the parasite especially challenging to trace.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
