A customer buys cilantro at a Walmart Supercenter on July 23, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | fake images
The largest multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis linked to shredded iceberg lettuce has expanded to nine states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The four newly linked states (Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania) join hard-hit Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan. Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that typically infects people through contaminated food or water and causes cyclosporiasis, a gastrointestinal illness that can cause symptoms including severe diarrhea. Patients may require hospitalization, but no deaths related to the parasite have been recorded this year.
The outbreak is already the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak reported in the U.S. this year, with thousands of illnesses reported nationwide. This figure is well above the approximately 200 to 1,000 cases that are typically reported annually.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is investigating a separate outbreak of cyclosporiasis linked to one or more unidentified food products. The United States is trying to investigate the sources of the parasite and contain its spread amid confusion over its response to the outbreak and staff cuts that some experts say made it more difficult to curb it.
In his apparent first public comments on the outbreak, President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States would impose “a significant tariff” on Mexico “because of the lettuce.” It is not clear whether he was serious.
U.S. food and health regulators have focused on shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms, a private company based in California, from its plant in central Mexico.
Mexican health authorities said Thursday that lettuce and water samples from the facility tested negative for cyclospora. However, that result does not refute the Food and Drug Administration's earlier identification of Mexico's Taylor Farms as the likely source of the outbreak.
The first cases began to show symptoms in mid-May. Furthermore, the long incubation period of the infection means that the responsible harvest would have been distributed weeks ago.
Last week, the FDA said the produce giant supplied shredded iceberg lettuce to Taco Bell restaurants where people ate before they got sick. Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall of all iceberg lettuce from its Guanajuato, Mexico facility, and Taco Bell removed the affected lettuce from its restaurants.
So far, the CDC has counted 1,947 people infected with cyclospora who also reported eating at Taco Bell in the nine states. The outbreak illnesses linked to iceberg lettuce began on June 22 and continued through July 20, the CDC said. The federal count has lagged behind state counts, so some of the states affected by the outbreak have reported much higher numbers of infections.
But Taylor Farms has received criticism for its response to the outbreak. Some health experts criticized its recall notice, which included abbreviations and did not allow consumers to easily understand whether they had purchased or consumed any products that were at risk.
After the FDA reported a false positive in Taylor Farms lettuce samples on Sunday, the company issued a statement saying the health agency had apologized. The FDA later clarified that it had not apologized to Taylor Farms and the company removed the statement about X, although it is still available on its website. The agency also said it still considered the company's iceberg lettuce to be the likely source of the outbreak.
Taylor Farms supplies lettuce and other produce to major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Whole Foods, as well as restaurant chains such as Taco Bell.
