A Parasitic Gut Infection Is Spreading Across 34 States
A cyclosporiasis outbreak tied to contaminated lettuces and salad greens has now reached 34 states, with Idaho reporting its first case on July 8, 2026. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare confirmed the case involved an Idahoan who had traveled out of state before falling ill.
Cyclosporiasis is caused by the parasite cyclospora, which spreads through food or water contaminated with feces. Symptoms include explosive watery diarrhea, nausea, and stomach cramps. The illness often goes undiagnosed because standard stool tests do not detect cyclospora without a specific request from a physician.
1,645 cases confirmed by the CDC across 34 states, with more than 5,100 additional cases still awaiting confirmation.
That official count is almost certainly low. Michigan alone has reported more than 2,600 cases at the state level, more than the entire CDC national total, a gap that reflects both underreporting and the lag in federal confirmation. Michigan state health officials have identified lettuces and salad greens as a likely source.
CDC Cut Monitoring for This Exact Parasite Last Year
The outbreak arrives one year after the CDC, under the Trump administration, reduced surveillance for several foodborne illnesses, including cyclospora. That decision reduced the federal government’s capacity to detect outbreaks early, trace contaminated food sources, and coordinate state responses.
The consequence is visible now. With the CDC’s own tally acknowledged as an undercount, public health officials are working without a clear picture of how many people are sick or where the contamination is coming from.
Idaho’s largest regional health authority, Central District Health, issued a health advisory urging providers to test patients with prolonged, watery, or relapsing diarrheal illness for cyclospora specifically. That advisory would be unnecessary if the infection were on providers’ radar already.
What You Can Do Now
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Call your U.S. senators at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to restore the CDC’s foodborne illness monitoring programs that were cut in 2025. Ask specifically: “Will you push to fund CDC’s FoodNet and cyclospora surveillance in the next appropriations bill?”
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Contact your state health department and ask whether they are testing for cyclospora. Find your state health department at cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/healthdirectories. If your state is among the 34 affected, ask what the confirmed case count is and whether a food source has been identified.
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Talk to your doctor now if you have prolonged diarrhea. Ask specifically for a cyclospora stool test. Standard tests miss this parasite unless the lab knows to look for it.
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Avoid salad bars and pre-washed bagged greens until federal officials identify and recall the specific contaminated product, which has not yet happened as of July 14, 2026.
Update, July 25, 2026: Frank Yiannas, who served as FDA deputy commissioner for food policy from 2018 to 2023 under both the Trump and Biden administrations, told Politico the federal response to the cyclospora outbreak has approached “a catastrophic level” in terms of mismanagement. He is calling for an independent review of the government’s response, conducted either through congressional oversight or an independent inspector.
The FDA has expanded its investigation to 7,400 potential cases across nine states, a figure that contradicts Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s statement last week that the outbreak was “under control.” The agency previously identified lettuce from Taylor Farms, a Taco Bell supplier, as linked to the outbreak, then backtracked; Taylor Farms says the FDA apologized for that identification, which the FDA denies.
Yiannas said the agency shared blame for public confusion by sending mixed messages and failing to explain how it named a source before retracting it. The FDA had not responded to calls for an independent investigation as of July 25, according to The Guardian.
Update, July 27, 2026: A salmonella outbreak spanning 17 states has emerged alongside the ongoing cyclosporiasis surge, with PBS NewsHour reporting both outbreaks on July 27. Federal health officials have not publicly identified a contaminated food source linked to the salmonella cases as of that date.
Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, discussed the dual outbreaks in a PBS NewsHour interview on July 27. Rivers did not name a confirmed source product for either outbreak during the segment.
No recall has been announced by the FDA or CDC as of July 27. The back-to-back outbreaks are drawing direct attention to the monitoring capacity cuts documented in this brief.
Update, July 29, 2026: The cyclospora outbreak has now sickened more than 11,500 people across the United States, according to PBS NewsHour reporting published July 29. Federal health officials have also opened an investigation into a second, separate cyclospora outbreak, distinct from the one already under review.
A poll released July 26 found that 40% of U.S. adults reduced purchases of fresh produce during the outbreak. Lisa Cuchara, a professor of biomedical sciences at Quinnipiac University, published guidance noting that cyclospora resists the chlorine and sanitizers used in commercial produce washing, and that parasite eggs adhere tightly to the surface of leafy greens.
Cuchara recommends choosing whole heads of lettuce over commercially bagged greens, which pass through more processing steps and present more contamination opportunities at each stage. The current outbreak is suspected to originate from large commercial producers, and health officials have not linked it to locally grown produce.