As the cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce spread to nine states, Americans have dubbed the health concern “lettuce-gate” on social media, and they aren’t convinced the situation is under control.
Days after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to calm growing concerns about the parasitic illness, saying that the source of the outbreak has been identified and companies involved have implemented a recall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced hundreds more have been infected with cyclospora — bringing the nationwide total to 1,947 as of Friday.
At least 98 hospitalizations have been reported, but no deaths have been reported, according to the CDC.
“Is anyone else, like, deathly afraid to eat lettuce right now?” one person asked in a video posted on TikTok.
Health officials believe the affected iceberg lettuce came from a Taylor Farms facility located in central Mexico.
In a new statement on Saturday, a spokesperson for Taylor Farms said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not confirmed positive results from cyclospora testing of its product samples as of Friday.
“When questions were raised about the source of the recent Cyclospora outbreak, we immediately removed all potentially implicated product from the marketplace, and out of an abundance of caution we issued an even broader recall of all iceberg lettuce sourced from the region,” the spokesperson said.
Taylor Farms also said it voluntarily suspended all iceberg lettuce sourcing and production from central Mexico. The company supplied its lettuce to Taco Bell, which said it removed the affected products from its restaurants.
The Mexican government on Friday also said its tests found no evidence of the parasite at Taylor Farms. The country’s Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks said it tested 10 lettuce samples as well as four water samples.
More confusion sparked last week when the FDA announced that a sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms that had tested positive for cyclospora was a false positive. But the FDA said Monday that its investigation and data “continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico.”
While illnesses have been confirmed in Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia, health officials suspect multiple outbreaks across 41 states, with more than 4,100 laboratory-confirmed cases and 7,400 suspected cases since May 1.
The number of confirmed cases is expected to rise despite the recall, due to the fact that it can take as long as six weeks for federal and state officials to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak, the CDC said.
Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that typically infects people through contaminated food or water. It causes a gastrointestinal illness called cyclosporiasis, which can result in symptoms like severe and sometimes “explosive” diarrhea. Symptoms can take up to two weeks to start.
“I don’t think we can say that this is under control yet,” Dr. Ulysses Wu, the chief epidemiologist for Hartford HealthCare, told CBS News. “Even if this lettuce was implicated, it doesn’t mean that other produce is not implicated as well.”
The FDA on Thursday reported a new cyclospora outbreak linked to unspecified products. It comes as health officials in North Carolina say they are investigating more than 560 cases there since May 1 that are possibly linked to parsley, cilantro and lettuce.