Earlier this week I wrote a response to Joelle Mosso of Western Growers, who argued that this summer’s Cyclosporaresponse exposed three major gaps in our public health system. I agreed with two of her three points and said so publicly, which is not a sentence I write often.

I then went looking for what everyone else had said. One of those statements has since been quietly deleted, and the restaurant chain at the center of this outbreak moved faster than the association that speaks for it. Here is what each group said, what I say back, and the three things I think we all actually want.

The calendar matters, because everything below turns on it. On July 16 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell in five states. On July 17 FDA named the supplier, Taylor Farms de Mexico, and the company pulled all iceberg from central Mexico off the U.S. market. On July 18 FDA reported that a sample of that lettuce, caught at the border, tested positive for Cyclospora. Seventy-two hours from first naming to laboratory confirmation.

The International Fresh Produce Association, or IFPA, speaks for growers, packers and processors — and for United Fresh and the Produce Marketing Association, which merged into it in 2022, so there is no separate statement from either to look for. Its founding board chair was Bruce Taylor, CEO of Taylor Farms. On July 16, Chief Science Officer Max Teplitski warned that “the response we are seeing will likely not slow this outbreak down.” He argued that officials were rushing to place blame rather than find a source. No contaminated product had been identified though samples were taken a week earlier. Questionnaires were a valuable signal, not robust evidence.

Every one of those claims was overtaken within two days, and I say that without pleasure. No contaminated product? There is a positive lot now, and it is detained. Only questionnaires? Michigan analyzed 190 people who ate at Taco Bell and found 90 percent ate iceberg lettuce — epidemiology, then traceback to a single supplier, then laboratory confirmation. All three legs in a Cyclospora case is close to unheard of, because this parasite will not grow in culture, a point Teplitski made himself and made correctly. Then someone went looking with the right method and found the thing he said nobody had found.

IFPA also published a consumer FAQ that is far better, and I want to give it credit and then turn it around. It explains why traceback is so hard: one bag of salad can combine lettuce from several growers across different states or countries, washed and packed at a single facility, and once commingled there is no way to tell whose product is in the bag. Exactly right — and the best argument anyone has made this month for the Food Traceability Rule, which exists to solve that precise problem. IFPA wrote the case for the rule while its industry was asking to delay it.

The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, or LGMA, speaks for the lettuce farms, and there are two statements at the same web address — only one still there. The version live today extends sympathies, credits officials for moving quickly, accepts Mexican-grown lettuce as the likely source, and notes California and Arizona grow about 90 percent of America’s lettuce. The version captured on July 15 called lettuce a leading suspect, said investigators were relying primarily on interviews, said Cyclospora is “more commonly associated with imported fresh produce than with domestically produced leafy greens,” and told members CDC discontinued routine national reporting of cyclosporiasis in 2025 following federal budget reductions.

Same URL, no correction, no update stamp. And here is what I want LGMA to hear: the paragraph you deleted is the truest thing any trade group has said about this outbreak. Surveillance was gutted in 2025, which is exactly why CDC confirms 1,644 outbreak cases while Michigan alone reports more than 5,000, and why I have spent two weeks explaining the difference between a confirmed case and a sick person. Your members are hurt by that gap worse than anyone — a clean California grower cannot prove they are clean when nobody can count accurately or trace quickly. Do not delete that paragraph. Send it to Congress. I will co-sign it.

The National Restaurant Association has said nothing. USA TODAY asked the NRA and Yum! Brands, McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Jersey Mike’s, Burger King, Subway and Wendy’s what they were doing about a parasite moving through restaurant lettuce. Not one answered. Meanwhile Dipisa’s Pizza in Stevensville, Michigan pulled lettuce, tomatoes and onions off its menu on July 10. Nor can I find a word from the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, which represents the importers who bring Mexican produce into this country — the very channel this outbreak came through.

Silence is a position. An outbreak centered on restaurants, in states full of NRA members, and the association that exists to speak for those members produced nothing an operator could act on — no sourcing guidance, no advice on what to ask a distributor, no word of support for franchisees about to lose a month of sales through no fault of their own. Independent operators figured it out alone. They deserved better from the organization they pay dues to.

FMI — The Food Industry Association speaks for the grocery stores, and FMI got it right. I will say so plainly, because it is true and nobody else will. Its cyclosporiasis backgrounder is operational rather than defensive. Asked whether there has been a recall, it answers “Yes, products containing shredded iceberg lettuce have been recalled” and links the notice. It explains the confirmed-versus-probable divergence accurately and without spin. It is the only one of these documents that would survive being read aloud in a deposition.

My one criticism is meant as a suggestion. FMI never tells member grocers to pull the product from the shelf — and FDA named Marketside-brand bags at Walmart, with best-by dates running to August 3. CDC now says the recall covers lettuce sold at retail and tells consumers, restaurants and retailers to throw it out. FMI is the organization best positioned to make that happen in ten thousand stores at once. Say it, and you will have done more for public health this month than any regulator.

And then Taco Bell, which is not a trade association but belongs in this accounting. On Thursday July 16, before the federal confirmation and with no advisory requiring it, Taco Bell said it was voluntarily removing potentially impacted lettuce and pulling the ingredient from its national supply chain indefinitely. On July 17 it confirmed removal was complete and said, “public health is a shared responsibility among restaurants, their suppliers, and authorities.”

Taco Bell moved ahead of the government instead of waiting to be told. Worth noting that Taco Bell is a Yum! Brands company, and Yum! was among those that did not answer USA TODAY’s questions a week earlier — so the brand at the center of this acted while its parent, which also owns KFC and Pizza Hut, stayed quiet. Compare both to Taylor Farms, which called the source a specific independent farm representing less than one percent of the U.S. iceberg supply — a sentence engineered to shrink a problem — and to the trade association they both belong to, which said nothing at all. When the operator with the most to lose acts faster than the association paid to protect it, the association should ask itself why.

Now back to where I started. I told Western Growers it was right about two of three, and I meant it. What I would say to all of you comes down to three things we already agree on. Rebuild national Cyclospora surveillance and extend it into the water — irrigation, post-harvest, wastewater — where this parasite lives; Mosso asked for that and so did Teplitski, and they are both right. Give FDA real import authority, because in 2013, after a Cyclospora outbreak traced to this Taylor Farms, FDA announced increased surveillance of Mexican leafy greens, and thirteen years later announced it again, and it worked both times. And put the Food Traceability Rule back on schedule.

That last one is where I need the industry, because you can move it and I cannot. FSMA 204 requires lot-level records producible in twenty-four hours, leafy greens are on the list, and compliance was set for January 20, 2026. FDA announced a thirty-month delay in March 2025, published it that August, and in November Congress made it binding through July 20, 2028. Then this outbreak arrived, and FDA published a recall notice with no lot codes, customers identified only as CV, JB, MARK, MKTSD, PK, SUB, SY and TF, and a positive lot FDA says may be “available in commerce or in consumers homes” because nobody is required to be able to find it. IFPA’s own FAQ explains why that is unacceptable better than I can.

And here I have to say something uncomfortable, because it is true and because leaving it out would make everything above dishonest. The organization that has fought hardest against this rule is FMI — the same FMI whose outbreak communication I just praised. FMI has called the Food Traceability Rule overly complex, said its requirements go well beyond what Congress directed and are so burdensome as to not be achievable with currently available technology, and when FDA announced the thirty-month delay, President and CEO Leslie Sarasin applauded it and urged the agency to reexamine parts of the rule. The National Grocers Association applauded too, arguing the rule disproportionately impacts smaller grocers and that the original timeline was nearly impossible to meet. The Global Cold Chain Alliance said it was encouraged by this delay. And in 2024, Representatives Scott Franklin, Sanford Bishop and Jimmy Panetta introduced the Food Traceability Enhancement Act, which would have delayed compliance further and stripped lot-code requirements from restaurants, retail stores and warehouses outright. FMI and NGA both supported it.

Someone did fight for it. The Safe Food Coalition filed formal opposition to the delay in September 2025, telling the Commissioner that January 2026 already gave industry ample time and that no one should need more than a decade and a half to implement a law passed in 2010. The Center for Science in the Public Interest said the delay would only keep the public in the dark. The Center for Food Safety is the reason the rule exists at all — when FDA blew its statutory deadline, CFS sued, and a court order forced the rulemaking. To its credit, the National Restaurant Association is not on the other side of this one: its own guidance page calls the rule a measure expected to result in fewer foodborne illnesses and deaths and tells restaurants to prepare now. I could find no evidence IFPA lobbied for the delay either.

So set the two things side by side. FMI wrote the clearest, most useful public document of this outbreak — and FMI is the most effective reason FDA could not trace a bag of shredded lettuce in twenty-four hours when it mattered. I do not think that makes the backgrounder less good. I think it makes this outbreak the strongest argument against FMI’s own position that anyone could have written, and I would rather FMI reach that conclusion than have me keep pointing at it.

Congress should hold a hearing — a working one, not a show trial. Energy and Commerce and Senate HELP both have jurisdiction, and four questions need answers on the record. Why was routine Cyclospora surveillance discontinued in 2025, who decided it, and what did it save? Why did FDA screen Mexican leafy greens at the border in 2013, stop, and only start again after people got sick? How does a lot of lettuce test positive and stay outside a recall? And with this outbreak showing precisely what the traceability rule was written to prevent, will FDA and Congress defend the delay under oath?

One association argued the investigation could not work. One made the right argument and then deleted it. One said nothing. One did its job. A restaurant chain moved before it was asked. And one wrote something thoughtful enough that I answered it, which is how this whole thing started. I am not keeping score for its own sake. I care what happens next summer, because this parasite comes back every summer, and it always will until somebody fixes those three things. Want to put me out of business? Fix it.