FDA reverses itself again, ties cyclosporiasis infections to Taylor Farms lettuce

Food and Drug Administration officials on Monday said "overwhelming" epidemiological evidence tied a parasitic infection that has sickened thousands of Americans to lettuce provided by vegetable giant Taylor Farms, despite an earlier announcement that a lab link was a false positive. 

"FDA’s traceback investigation and outbreak data continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico," the agency said in a statement Monday. 

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Saturday, there were 1,644 cases and 94 hospitalizations for cyclosporiasis, which can bring severe gastrointestinal distress but is generally not life-threatening. Public health officials have identified dozens of cases on Long Island. 

The CDC is still advising consumers not to eat recalled iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms that might be sold in stores or served in restaurants, though it is not clear if Long Islanders would come into contact with any of it. Taylor Farms last week said it had distributed shredded iceberg lettuce to 27 states, including New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, but did not list New York. The company said it was "voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market, because it has the potential to be contaminated with Cyclospora."

In a briefing Monday with reporters, FDA acting Deputy Commissioner for Food Donald Prater said the agency had hurried over the weekend to announce a lettuce sample from Taylor tested positive for cyclospora because it "was outside the scope" of the product recall the company had already made.

"We found it was important to share this result" with the public, he said. When agency officials realized the lab test was incorrect and did not, in fact, establish the presence of the cyclospora parasite, it issued a "correction," he said. 

FDA officials, speaking to reporters on the call on background, said the agency used a kind of DNA test called polymerase chain reaction to rapidly identify cyclospora. False positives are not common with that kind of testing, they said, and other lines of investigation — known as "traceback," finding the origin of food by tracing commonalities in supply chains of foods eaten by sickened people — also pointed to Taylor. 

Taylor Farms, in a post on its website Sunday, said, "Today, FDA apologized to us ... FDA made a mistake."

But the FDA officials on Monday denied any formal apology had been made.

In an interview Monday, Dr. Bruce Farber, an infectious disease specialist with Northwell Health in Manhasset, likened the DNA testing to fingerprinting at a crime scene: "If you want to confirm anything in microbiology, you take the fingerprint." The problem is the test is "very good, accurate and easy with bacteria, but not very good and not accurate with something like a parasite."

The apparent uptick in cases of cyclospora infection on Long Island and other places not exposed to the Taylor lettuce suggests there was more than one source of the parasite, perhaps contributing to multiple small outbreaks, he said. 

Farber and other experts said the outbreaks pointed to the need to shore up the nation's public health infrastructure. In an email, Amira Roess, professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University and a former CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, wrote: "Our food safety and public health surveillance systems have been woefully under resourced for quite some time. On top of that the cuts of last year have further stressed an already weak system," 

In a 2025 report, Trust for America’s Health, a nonpartisan advocacy group, found the CDC's fiscal 2026 budget amounted to a 53% funding cut and cuts to local health departments forcing layoffs and hiring freezes and agency reorganizations. 

"When you are doing the outbreak investigation to identify potential sources or exposures you are relying on outbreak investigators who are beyond overwhelmed working with ever dwindling resources to conduct interviews of the infected individuals," Roess wrote. 

An article this spring in UC Berkeley Haas Magazine, a publication of the Haas School of Business, described Taylor Farms, founded by Berkeley alumnus Bruce Taylor, as a pioneer in the branded prepackaged chopped salad market, selling 165 million servings of produce a week. The company is worth $7 billion and has 25,000 employees, according to the article.

The CDC lists symptoms of cyclospora infection as including "watery diarrhea, with frequent bowel movements," loss of appetite, stomach cramps and fatigue.

The time between becoming infected and becoming sick is usually about a week. Complications may last from a few days to a month or longer.

People who think they may be infected should seek medical care. A healthcare provider may prescribe antibiotics to treat the infection.

While cyclospora infection, or cyclosporiasis, is potentially serious, the case numbers provided by public health officials so far are small compared to the total foodborne illnesses in the United States each year. They number about 48 million cases, according to the CDC, including some that are more common, like E. coli, which number in the tens of thousands, or salmonella, which number over a million. Other infections, such as listeria, are uncommon but considerably more lethal.

Farber said Long Islanders should "wash their fresh produce carefully," and wash cutting boards before and after use. Especially risk-averse people may cook their vegetables, he said. 

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.