FDA Reverses Itself: Taylor Farms Lettuce Was NOT Confirmed Source of Cyclospora Outbreak

The lab result that started it all was wrong

Since Taylor Farms de Mexico issued its recall covering 27 states last week, the FDA has now reversed its own finding on what caused the outbreak. On Sunday, July 19, the agency said the sample that tested positive for cyclospora in Taylor Farms shredded iceberg lettuce was a false positive, according to the FDA's own outbreak update and reporting by the New York Post and Food Safety News.

"FDA laboratory experts re-reviewed the sample results and have concluded that the finding does not represent true amplification and should be considered a false positive," the agency said. As of July 19, the FDA states there are no confirmed positive sample results for cyclospora tied to this outbreak, according to the Straits Times, which cited the FDA's update timestamped July 19.

On July 16 and 18, the FDA had said lettuce from Taylor Farms' Guanajuato, Mexico facility tested positive and traced the outbreak to that supplier, per Food Safety News. Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia had already dropped the lettuce. Taylor Farms had already pulled 25 shredded lettuce and salad mix products from the market. None of that has been undone.

The recall stays in place. The outbreak keeps growing.

Taylor Farms has not rescinded its recall, and the FDA says it's still working with the company to make sure the previously implicated product is off shelves, per the Straits Times. Taylor Farms told the FDA the product with the false-positive result wasn't even part of its current recall, according to that same report.

Meanwhile the case count keeps climbing. Michigan alone reported 5,002 patients and 102 hospitalizations as of July 17, according to Food Safety News, compared to a typical 40 to 50 confirmed cases statewide by this point in a normal year. Ohio is reporting more than 1,240 cases, Indiana over 320, Kentucky over 190, and West Virginia 139. The CDC's national count stood at 1,644 confirmed infections tied to Taco Bell exposure as of July 17, though Breitbart cited a separate CDC figure of at least 1,600 sickened this year. The Straits Times, citing the CDC, put hospitalizations nationally around 100. No deaths have been reported, per all five sources reviewed.

For anyone who bought Marketside-brand iceberg lettuce at Walmart or ate at an affected Taco Bell, the practical reality hasn't changed. The recalled products, which have shelf lives running to August 3, should still be tossed. The FDA's walk-back is about causation, not about whether people are still getting sick. They are.

The politics got ahead of the science

Before the reversal, some Democrats moved fast to tie the outbreak to the Trump administration. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) posted a video claiming the outbreak, which she called the worst in U.S. history, resulted from Trump "taking a wrecking ball" to public health infrastructure, according to Breitbart, even though the lettuce was traced to a supplier in central Mexico, not a domestic agency failure. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed blamed the CDC and FDA for the parasite outbreak and oil companies for separate wildfire-driven air quality problems, per the same Breitbart report.

That criticism landed before the FDA's own test results were confirmed reliable. Federal inspection and lab capacity is a legitimate policy question. Cyclospora detection is notoriously difficult, which the FDA itself acknowledged in explaining the false positive. But pinning a specific outbreak on a specific administration's staffing decisions before the source is even confirmed relies on incomplete information. The strongest version of the Democrats' complaint—that food-safety inspection resources have been strained—is a real policy debate. Attributing this specific outbreak to Trump personally before health officials even know what caused it is not something the evidence in these reports supports.

What's still unknown

The actual source of the cyclospora outbreak is now, again, unidentified. The FDA says its investigation is ongoing. Taylor Farms hasn't disclosed what other restaurant chains beyond Taco Bell received the recalled lettuce, according to Food Safety News. With thousands of Americans across at least five states still sick and case counts still rising in Michigan and Ohio, the central question remains open: what food actually carries the parasite. The FDA has not said when it expects to identify the true source.