Category: Diseases and injuries

When Food Isn’t Safe: Protecting Your Family

The cyclospora food contamination issue, highlighted by a record outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce, has raised concerns about food safety amid federal funding cuts affecting health agencies. With over 17,000 cases this summer, experts question the government’s response timing and ability to handle outbreaks, urging better investment in public health infrastructure.

Although the cyclospora food contamination problem has been the subject of humorous memes on social media, illness due to food borne infections is not to be taken lightly.

At home, you are responsible for thoroughly washing the food you prepare. But elsewhere you have little to no control over the safety of the food you are served.

Here is a recap of the public health response to the outbreak of diarrhea due to cyclospora in the United States this summer. It is followed by some practial advice on protecting your families from foodborne illness.

Thanks to Stateline, Oklahoma Voice, and Anna Vollers for the free use of the following article.

A summer of recalls exposes holes in the nation’s food safety net

by Anna Claire Vollers, Oklahoma Voice
August 31, 2026

Jalapenos. Frozen berries. Beef. Alfalfa sprouts.

A summer of food recalls, including the record-shattering cyclosporiasis outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce that has sickened thousands, has raised many Americans’ fears of contracting a foodborne illness.

The recalls have focused attention on the Trump administration’s decision to cut funding and staff at several public health agencies, and prompted questions about whether those changes have made consumers more vulnerable.

In fact, this year’s tally of food recalls is roughly in line with the numbers in recent years. About 48 million people each year get sick from a foodborne illness. But experts worry that the scope, severity, and scale of outbreaks and their associated food recalls are growing.

Cyclospora

While the United States sees some cyclosporiasis cases every year, this year’s outbreak has crushed records: Since May, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed more than 17,000 cases, with another nearly 12,000 reported cases still under investigation. The outbreak has resulted in at least 922 hospitalizations and two deaths.

this word slide lists, what in 1996, were those infections that were coming to bear, and reads as follows: “• Ebola in nonhuman primates, Texas; • Raccoon rabies, Ohio; • Cyclospora gastroenteritis, multiple states; • Malaria, Georgia and Florida; • Yellow fever (imported), Tennessee; • E. coli O157:H7 in apple juice, multiple states”.CDC, public domain

Federal officials have blamed this year’s multistate outbreak on processed iceberg lettuce from central Mexico. The lettuce was brought to the U.S. by Taylor Farms, a distributor that supplies foods to thousands of restaurants and grocery stores, including Target, Taco Bell, Whole Foods, Kroger, Walmart, Costco and Jack in the Box.

Quotation

I think there are valid questions around the timing of the response, the time it took for agencies to recognize the outbreak and to start to investigate it, get boots on the ground in Mexico.

– Jennifer McEntire, food microbiologist and founder of Food Safety Strategy

The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating at least six other clusters for which a source hasn’t yet been confirmed.

Cuts at the CDC and FDA haven’t necessarily increased consumers’ chances of food contamination or outbreaks, said Jennifer McEntire, a food microbiologist and the founder of a food safety consulting firm. However, McIntire said, “I do think the cuts may have influenced the way outbreaks unfold.”

“I think there are valid questions around the timing of the response, the time it took for agencies to recognize the outbreak and to start to investigate it, get boots on the ground in Mexico,” she said.

Darin Detwiler, a food safety expert and professor emeritus at Northeastern University, noted that the U.S. is seeing more recalls affecting multiple states, rather than a small area. He added that more recalls are being tied to a problem earlier in the food chain — such as contaminated irrigation water at a large lettuce farm rather than, say, improperly stored deli meat at a sandwich shop  — which can spread the pathogen to a far higher number of people and make it harder to track and contain.

“We’re seeing so many people impacted, so many states impacted, and the recalls are dragging on for a long time,” Detwiler. “There’s ambiguity or lack of transparency over who’s even behind a recall.”

The White House dismissed concerns about the federal government’s ability to handle outbreaks.

“The Trump Administration has never cut FDA food inspectors or other frontline personnel for domestic disease response,” White House spokesperson Allison Schuster told Stateline in an email. “

President Trump’s top priority is the health and safety of the American people, and the federal government remains capable of robustly addressing any future outbreaks.”

Fewer Staff, Less Funding

Last year, the Trump administration laid off thousands of employees at federal public health agencies including the CDC, which tracks and responds to disease outbreaks, and the FDA, which oversees and regulates food safety.

While some of the layoffs were reversed through lawsuits or by Congress, the nation’s public health agencies remain at diminished capacity. The CDC workforce has been reduced by 28% since December 2024, according to a Stateline analysis of data from the U.S. Office of Laboratories and Research (OL which responds to outbreaks, was downsized last year by the Department of Government Efficiency from 11 people to three.

Sandra Eskin, a food safety expert who worked in the office of food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Biden administration, likened federal public health cuts to the game Jenga, where players construct a tower of wooden blocks and then remove the blocks one at a time while trying not to make the tower fall.

“I think that’s what we’re seeing,” said Eskin, who now leads a public health nonprofit called Stop Foodborne Illness, which advocates for stronger food safety policies. “Whether it’s cuts in staff, cuts in funding that trickle down to the states, or late responses to outbreaks — these are all pieces of wood in that game where you start pulling them out and then the whole thing collapses.”

The federal government also has delayed requiring companies to comply with new food safety rules, included in a law enacted more than a decade ago, that would help regulators track where food comes from and where it’s going during outbreaks.

Detwiler and other experts say the new rules could have helped speed the government’s sluggish response to the cyclospora outbreak investigation after Taylor Farms initially tried delaying the recall.

Last year, the Trump administration also drastically scaled back FoodNet, an early warning surveillance system that required tracking of infections caused by eight different foodborne pathogens. The federal-state collaboration is now only required to track two pathogens: Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E.coli. The other six pathogens, including cyclospora, were made optional.

This pie chart illustrates the breakdown of the origins of salmonella infections amongst 500 salmonella outbreaks between 1966 and 1975. Sources of infection included pets (3%), dairy products (4%), eggs (6%), person-to-person (10%), meat (13%), poultry (17%), miscellaneous (19%), and unknown (28%).CDC/ Dr. Mike Miller, public domain

The CDC says the change was made because other surveillance systems monitor those pathogens. But McEntire and other food safety experts want them reinstated on FoodNet.

Funding Cuts’ Impact on States

Infectious outbreaks like cyclosporiasis are typically investigated by state and local health departments, which largely rely on federal dollars distributed through the FDA and CDC. Public health has been chronically underfunded for decades under several administrations, experts say.

But the Trump administration since last year has terminated $5.78 billion in CDC grants — funds that were appropriated by Congress but had not yet been spent.

Michigan, at the center of the cyclosporiasis outbreak with the highest number of cases and clusters, is one of 23 states (plus the District of Columbia) that successfully sued the Trump administration in June 2025 over federal funding cuts.

Changes to federal funding last year affected public health infrastructure across Michigan, a representative from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services told Stateline. During the cyclosporiasis outbreak, the state used its own resources to bolster local responses.

“While we are able to support this investigation on a local level, sustained investment in public health capacity is essential to ensuring Michigan can respond effectively to future regional and statewide public health threats,” said department spokesperson Lynn Sutfin.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes Oklahoma Voice, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.

The graphics used in the article were not part of the original publication.

Keeping Your Family Safe

4 STEPS TO FOOD SAFETY

The CDC offers these tips for food safety.

To prevent food poisoning, follow the four steps to food safety: Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill. Keep hands and surfaces clean, keep risky foods separate from other foods, cook food properly, and refrigerate promptly.

Some foods are more likely to contain harmful germs, including:

  • Raw or undercooked poultry, meat, seafood, or eggs
  • Raw or undercooked sprouts
  • Unwashed fruits and vegetables
  • Cut melon
  • Unpasteurized milk, juice, cider, or soft cheese
  • Raw dough or raw batter made with uncooked flour

Explore this topic further at CDC FOOD SAFETY

The most common sources of fatal infections were meat and poultry, much due to Salmonella and Listeria, from the CDC website

Next Steps

Take time to consider what you learned from this article and what else you might need to know.

Consider inspecting your own home for how well it protects your family from food-related illness. While much of the health advice we offer now involves the types of food we eat, the basics of food storage and meal preparation are still important.

How important is this to you and what are your next steps? I’d like to know, so please comment. I try to respond to all comments.

Exploring the HEART of Health

I appreciate your time reading this post and invite you to follow this blog and me on social media.

I share information and inspiration to help you transform challenges into opportunities for learning and growth.

Add your name to the subscribe box to be notified of new posts by email. Click the link to read the post and browse other content. It’s that simple. No spam.

I enjoy seeing who is new to Watercress Words. When you subscribe, I will visit your blog or website. Thanks and see you next time.

Dr. Aletha

Measles, Cyclospora-When Should You Be Concerned?

In this post I review the CURRENT outbreaks of preventable illnesses in the United States. I also discuss the significance of significant unlying conditions.

Have you wondered how they know the current cyclospora outbreak in the United States may have started with lettuce at a Taco Bell restaurant?

This article from KFF Health News explains how. Nurses from the local public health department call infected people and ask them about their eating habits.

Can you remember what you ate two weeks ago, the brand name on the package, and where it came from? What restaurant did you go to two weeks ago? If you didn’t order on an app or save your receipt, you might not remember.

Fortunately for the sake of disease tracing, some people do.

Nurses Chase Cyclospora, Aided by Interviews, Fast-Food Receipts — And the Messy Details

By Kate Wells, Aug 4, 2026

A woman holding a phone to her left ear sits in front of a laptop and looks at the screen.
Linda Kim, a nurse with the Washtenaw County Health Department in Michigan, has been helping to investigate the county’s 900-plus cases of cyclosporiasis since mid-June. Public health investigations of foodborne illnesses are complex, and that’s especially the case with cyclosporiasis, because symptoms can take as long as two weeks to appear after someone’s eaten contaminated food. (Kate Wells/KFF Health News)

Listen at this link.

More than 900 people in Washtenaw County, Michigan, have been sickened with cyclosporiasis since mid-June. Linda Kim, a public health nurse, has called more than 100 of them. Almost everyone has said the same thing: It’s excruciating, and one of the worst illnesses they’ve experienced.

But on a Wednesday in July, she called one man who said he wouldn’t mind having it again, actually.

“You’re enjoying the weight loss?” Kim said, laughing as she took notes in a small conference room at the Washtenaw County Health Department building, just outside Ann Arbor. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. At least you got something good out of it!”

Normally, Kim’s supposed to be working downstairs in the clinic, where families wait in gray plastic chairs in the lobby for free or low-cost immunizations. But she hasn’t been there in months.

First, a Measles Outbreak

In March, Kim was transferred to a different department to help deal with a measles outbreak that sickened seven people in the county, five of them children. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation; everyone worked overtime. The state issued an advisory urging families in Washtenaw and surrounding counties to get babies 6 months or older vaccinated ahead of schedule, if possible.

The contact-tracing calls for measles could be contentious, Kim said. People were suspicious, asking her how she knew they had tested positive, or why they should give her any information.

“People were like, ‘Oh, you’re just trying to restrict my life,’ or ‘You’re just trying to get information out of me and get me in trouble,’” she said. “It’s like, no, we’re actually not doing that at all.”

As she tried to explain to them, tracing the spread of the highly contagious virus and publicizing possible exposure sites was an effort to “keep it contained, so it doesn’t become something huge.”

Measles is highly contagious and spreads through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
Then, Cyclospora “Exploded”

The county’s measles outbreak ended in late May. Then in June, reports of cyclosporiasis cases started pouring in — more than 11,000 so far in Michigan, including two deaths. Both people who died had “significant underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by cyclosporiasis and dehydration,” the state health department said on its website Aug. 3.

Health officials aren’t providing more details, department spokesperson Lynn Sutfin said in an email, but are stressing that cyclosporiasis generally isn’t life-threatening and that deaths from it are uncommon in the U.S.

Kim said the cyclosporiasis surveillance has been very different from her experience with the measles outbreak.

Now, people seem eager to divulge even the most graphic details, such as “pooping their beds, and, like, putting down towels and it’s not enough.”

Linda Kim, public health nurse

Since she’s a nurse, such confessions don’t faze her, she said. Still, staffers have hundreds of these calls to make, so they try to keep each conversation under an hour.

“Crunchy or Soft?”

But foodborne illness investigations are complex. Especially for this parasite, cyclospora. Symptoms can take as long as two weeks to appear after people have eaten contaminated food. And no one remembers what they ate two weeks ago, public health staffers said.

The interview process can be extremely detailed. Kim and her colleagues ask people to pull up their restaurant receipts, scroll through purchases on their grocery store apps, even try to recall details such as the exact brand of bagged salad mix they bought, or the type of taco they got at Taco Bell.

“Is that the crunchy one or the soft one?” Kim asked on a recent call, typing on a laptop decorated with cat and vaccine-themed stickers.

Kim has been working with the health department for two years, a period defined by federal funding cuts.

Federal Funding Cuts Hurt

Laina Stebbins, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to public health grants eliminated a contract between the state health department and 44 of the state’s 45 local departments that funded 123 full-time employees.

Those cuts also affected the state’s disease surveillance labs, “reducing funding for equipment maintenance contracts, data modernization, and the ability to innovate laboratory processes during emerging disease response,” Stebbins said.

Some of that funding was restored after Michigan won a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration. But Washtenaw’s health department still had to scale back some disease surveillance and outbreak response work. Currently, employees who leave or retire aren’t replaced, except for those on the nursing team, which is hiring but still understaffed.

The county’s Health Equity Council, which aims to reduce health disparities, including in mental health, was shuttered suddenly in early 2025. Nearly a year later, it resumed its work, with funding at least through this September.

An image of a building where the sign on its wall reads, "State of Michigan Department of Health & Human Services."
Staff at the Washtenaw County Health Department in Ypsilanti, Michigan, have been working to trace the sources of the recent cyclospora outbreaks by conducting detailed, often lengthy interviews with hundreds of people. (Kate Wells/KFF Health News)
Slow Response from Federal Public Health

An employee from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been stationed at the department. During the funding chaos, the worker was fired, then rehired, then furloughed.

The federal response to cyclosporiasis has felt frustratingly slow, according to Christina Zilke, a nursing supervisor at the Washtenaw health department.

“It took them forever to say that this was lettuce, and fast-food restaurants were taking it off the shelves before the CDC ever said what it was,” she said.

During a July 14 press call, the deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, Gwen Biggerstaff, said it’s not unusual for it to take a long time to identify a specific source for cyclosporiasis — if it’s identified at all. That’s partly due to the lag time between exposure and the appearance of symptoms, and the complexity of tracing this particular parasite.

Meanwhile, Zilke’s been stocking the coffee station and bringing in pizza, trying to keep up staff morale. It’s not a reward, she said. “It’s more like: ‘Here’s some food for survival. Here’s a break so you don’t quit.’”

Kim, for her part, remains enthusiastic about the job but said it’s been a surreal introduction to a public health career — first measles, now cyclospora.

“If nationally they don’t know what’s going on, how are we locally expected to know what’s going on?” she said. “And also just frustrating to be, like, ‘Wow, I don’t think even our government knows how important public health is.’”

But there’s no time to dwell. She has to move on to the next call, as soon as she can wrap up this one. She gives each person her work number, so people can call or text with any follow-up questions.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Underlying Health Conditions Explained

One term used in this story you’ve heard before –“people with significant underlying health conditions.” During COVID, these people were known to be at increased risk of severe disease, complications, and death. That’s true of many acute illnesses, not just COVID, cyclospora, or other infections.

What exactly is a significant underlying health condition? Simply put, any medical condition that involves a critical body organ or system-heart, lungs, kidneys, brain. An official definition of “significant underlying health conditions” is

 long-term or chronic medical issues that last for more than one year, require ongoing medical care, and can increase the risk of severe complications from infections like COVID-19. Examples are

  Heart Conditions: Heart failure, coronary artery disease, and cardiomyopathies.

  Chronic Lung Diseases: COPD, moderate-to-severe asthma, and pulmonary fibrosis.

  Diabetes: Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, particularly with complications.

  Obesity: Having a high body mass index (BMI) that strains organ function.

  Chronic Kidney and Liver Disease: Stage-based kidney disease or chronic liver failure/cirrhosis.

  Immunocompromised States: Active cancer treatments, organ transplants, or HIV.

The “one-year” means they are expected to last at least that long, not that we wait a year before considering them significant. Most of the ones listed become lifelong concerns.

Other significant medical conditions include age-the very young or old, pregnancy, neurological dysfunction, homelessness, and substance abuse.

These are also referred to as Chronic Diseases. However, some chronic diseases do not necessarily increase one’s risk of serious illness.

How do you know if you have one of these conditions? Usually, they are diagnosed when symptoms prompt someone to seek medical attention and undergo an appropriate exam and testing. But sometimes people walk around for years ignoring “minor” symptoms until they become major. By this time, heart, lung, or kidney disease can be in advanced stages, as can cancer.

But that doesn’t mean people without serious underlying conditions are not at risk of getting seriously ill or dying from COVID, measles, cyclospora, influenza, pneumonia, or any other unexpected disease or injury. We all need to be vigilant to protect our health.

Next Steps

If you have a serious chronic disease, how do you protect yourself from acute illnesses that might become severe or life-threatening?

What else do you need to know, and where will you get this information?

If you don’t have a chronic disease now, what do you do to prevent one? Do you wonder what more you could do?

Your physician can help you. Consider asking about screening for the chronic diseases mentioned above.

Review your family medical history. If a close relative has a chronic disease, you may be at increased risk.

Review your use of tobacco, alcohol, and other substances.

Last but not least, we all need to monitor our daily activities-what we eat, how much we sit, how much we move, and our sleep. These are all vitally important to good health, but often ignored.

Exploring the HEART of Health

Thanks to KFF Health News and NPR for this report. The cover photo is by Photo by SpotOn POS on Pexels.com.

You’ve made it through a long post with much information to digest. Take it one step at a time. One can get fatigued with too many good intentions.

I appreciate your time reading this post and invite you to follow this blog and me on social media.

I share information and inspiration to help you transform challenges into opportunities for learning and growth.

Add your name to the subscribe box to be notified of new posts by email. Click the link to read the post and browse other content. It’s that simple. No spam.

I enjoy seeing who is new to Watercress Words. When you subscribe, I will visit your blog or website. Thanks and see you next time.

Dr. Aletha