Saturday, August 8, 2026
Last Saturday this column was called The Week Cyclospora Stopped Being a Health Story and Became an Accounting One. This week the accounting stopped being the argument. On Monday it was announced that two people died in Michigan. On Tuesday a newspaper announced a federal expansion the government had not.
CDC and FDA have named the vehicle, the growing region and the importer in the Salmonella Javiana outbreak: fresh jalapeños grown in Sinaloa, Mexico, brought into this country by Coast Citrus Distributors. Three hundred forty-five people in twenty-seven states, thirty-six hospitalized, no deaths, onsets running June 19 to July 20.
Start with the organism
Ohio Alone Has Now Reported Sixty-Four Times What It Reported in All of 2025. The Fifty-State Cyclospora Count Is 26,755, and the Federal Number Has Not Moved Since Wednesday.
The fifty state health departments now report 26,755 cases of cyclosporiasis this season, up 919 from 25,836. Two states moved and both are inside the federal outbreak. Ohio
This started (Well, it actually started with getting up at 4:00 AM and too much coffee) with a farm radio script ninety-second item on the Land and Livestock Report saying a produce group wants federal investigators to look beyond food as the cause of the Cyclospora outbreak. Behind it was an August 4 press release
Tonight I went back through all fifty state health departments, both federal case pages, and every Cyclosporafile FDA has open. Here is where each of those numbers actually stands, and then the sentence I would like to measure them against.
On July 21, at a briefing about health care fraud, Secretary Kennedy was asked
Put two government documents side by side, fourteen years apart, and the whole argument about transparency in public health answers itself.
On July 16, 2026, FDA published its first public advisory on the Cyclospora outbreak. The opening sentence named Taco Bell. Five states, 1,644 confirmed illnesses, onset dates reaching back to May 13. The next
The documented chain, and the hypothesis this post is about.
Every time I raise irrigation water in this outbreak, the same sentence comes back at me. The water comes from deep wells. There is no Cyclospora in a well six hundred feet down. It is a good answer. It is also, on the government’s own
CDC named the source of the current Salmonella outbreak today — jalapeños from a grower in Sinaloa, Mexico, moved into the United States by Coast Citrus Distributors, 345 people sick (most in Minnesota and Colorado) in 27 states with 36 hospitalized. Chipotle and QDOBA pulled product.
It is not surprising. Fresh hot peppers and Salmonella
Twelve days after its last update, FDA posted a new advisory this evening that said nine-state outbreak now says fifteen. The total is 6,358 illnesses, up from 1,947. Hospitalizations are 278, up from 98. And after eleven days in which every federal page said zero, the deaths are on it: two, both
CDC posted an outbreak investigation page this evening. The numbers are 345 people sick in 27 states, 36 hospitalized — twelve percent of the 291 for whom that information exists — and no deaths. Illnesses began between June 19 and July 20. Of 191 people interviewed, 177 reported eating at a Mexican-style restaurant, Chipotle and
