What's known as "cyclospora season" has wound down. That's good news, sort of, for consumers who spent the summer wondering whether a side salad would come with a side of "explosive diarrhea." Americans' confidence in grocery store food safety has never been lower in Gallup's polling.
Cyclosporiasis, the illness caused by the microscopic parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis, typically peaks in summer. This year, it was anything but routine: A cyclospora outbreak sickened more than 12,000 people across 21 states, hospitalized at least 570 and was linked to two deaths.
The Food and Drug Administration linked the outbreak, the largest of its kind in U.S. history, to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico. The resulting recall reached restaurants and retailers in at least 31 states, from Taco Bell kitchens to bags of Marketside lettuce at Walmart.
Along the way, a microscopic parasite turned an everyday mealtime staple into a source of weeks of misery.
Investigators found cyclospora in a wastewater tank at the processing facility and a farm drainage ditch in Mexico. The FDA said it was still analyzing whether those samples were genetically related to the parasites found in sick people. Exactly how the lettuce became contaminated remained unresolved.
The agency outlined a 10-point plan on Oct. 2 to prevent similar outbreaks before next summer.
Consumer Reports has called for faster investigations, clearer public warnings and stronger industry accountability. In an Oct. 8 letter to the FDA, the organization raised concerns about the outbreak response and requested answers by Nov. 6.
Consumers have their own doubts. A Gallup poll conducted Sept. 1-17 found that 47 percent of Americans trust the federal government to ensure food safety, a record low.
That's down from 53 percent last year and 68 percent in 2019. For the first time, a majority have little or no confidence in federal food safety oversight.
Confidence in grocery store food has also slipped. The polling and research company found that 65 percent of Americans are confident it's safe to eat, down from 73 percent last year and 81 percent in 2019.
Food recalls and safety warnings are changing shopping habits, too. Seventy-three percent said they avoided certain food brands or types in the past year, up from 53 percent in 2024. Nearly half threw out or returned food, and 42 percent worried that something they ate was contaminated.
The poll doesn't establish that the outbreak caused the decline in trust. But a Consumer Reports investigation published Oct. 9 identified plenty of reasons for concern, including confusing recall notices, conflicting government updates and delays in tracing the lettuce.
One problem predates this summer: the delayed food-tracing rule required under the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011.
The rule requires companies handling certain foods, including leafy greens, fresh-cut fruit and some cheeses, to keep detailed supply-chain records and generally provide them within 24 hours of an FDA request.
The original compliance deadline was January 2026. The FDA proposed pushing it to July 2028, and Congress subsequently barred enforcement before that date.
FMI, the food industry trade association, argued that the food-tracing rule was too complicated and costly to implement by the original deadline. Companies needed more time to upgrade technology and coordinate records, the group said, warning that compliance costs could raise grocery prices.
Even while supporting the delay, the FDA said the requirements would allow for "faster identification and removal of potentially contaminated food from the market, resulting in fewer foodborne illnesses and deaths."
Had the rule been in place, "it would have made it easier to trace the outbreak back to the source more quickly," said Brian Ronholm, Consumer Reports' director of food policy and a former USDA deputy undersecretary for food safety.
"Basically, Congress decided to put consumers at risk because a small part of the food industry claimed 15 years wasn't enough time to prepare," Ronholm said.
Tracing delays weren't the only problem Consumer Reports identified.
Taylor Farms' initial notice omitted the word "recall." Its updated notice listed products using industry shorthand that shoppers might not recognize. Conflicting FDA and CDC updates added to the confusion, while the FDA's retraction of a positive lettuce test left some consumers mistakenly believing the recalled products had been cleared.
The outbreak also exposed gaps in oversight of imported food. FDA inspections of foreign food facilities fell nearly 35 percent between 2019 and 2025, The Associated Press reported.
The pandemic set off a wave of inspector retirements and departures that continued afterward. Although inspectors were not among the 3,500 FDA jobs targeted for elimination by the Trump administration, the agency cut more than half the staff responsible for booking travel. That left inspectors arranging most of their own flights, lodging and other logistics.
Inspectors reached the implicated Taylor Farms operation in Mexico about a month after the lettuce recall. It was their first visit since 2019.
"When you look at the numbers of inspections balanced against the responsibility of the FDA — in terms of all the firms domestically and internationally under its oversight — the agency just can't achieve what is required," Michael Rogers, who spent nearly 35 years in agency inspection roles, told AP.
He added that the FDA continues to do many things "very well with limited resources."
The FDA's 10-point plan calls for closer monitoring of produce linked to cyclospora, more inspections to ensure importers address contamination risks and expanded testing capacity in Mexico to get results faster.
But Consumer Reports questioned whether the plan addresses the failures exposed this summer. Much of the proposed work was already underway, and the organization said the plan did not appear to resolve the communication problems and tracing delays that hampered the response.
It also warned that the plan did little to address budget cuts, understaffed investigations and the loss of monitoring programs.
In a critique of the FDA plan, food safety attorney Bill Marler called it a useful start but argued that studies, training and surveillance don't require growers, processors or importers to change their practices before next summer.
The proposed actions "will make the next investigation faster and smarter," he wrote, but "they will not, by themselves, keep the parasite off the lettuce."
"That takes water standards, traceability that is enforced, verification on the farm, and a surveillance system that counts the sick," Marler wrote.
He singled out one proposal as especially important: giving laboratories a consistent way to compare the genetic makeup of cyclospora samples. Those comparisons can help investigators connect illnesses to their source, but he said the work needs adequate funding.
Taylor Farms, meanwhile, said it would indefinitely suspend sales of iceberg lettuce from central Mexico during the rainy season.
For shoppers, a recall can mean some kitchen detective work — pulling packages from the fridge and matching tiny batch numbers and dates against a recall notice.
New grocery barcodes could help stores catch affected products before they make it into the shopping bag, Patch previously reported.
The square codes, which resemble QR codes, can hold batch numbers, expiration dates and other details that traditional barcodes don't provide.
That could help retailers distinguish recalled food from otherwise identical packages that are safe to sell. Checkout systems equipped to read the information could also block sales of recalled products.
Some companies are already testing or using the technology. An industry initiative calls for retail checkout systems to handle the new codes by the end of 2027, though traditional barcodes can remain alongside them. The transition is separate from the FDA's food-tracing rule and does not require every product to switch by that date.
Washing produce properly can help reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses, but soap, bleach and homemade cleaning mixtures aren't the answer.
They haven't been proven to eliminate cyclospora and can create other safety problems. Washing can reduce risk, but it cannot guarantee the parasite is gone or make recalled produce safe to eat.
Cyclospora wasn't the only food safety concern on the summer menu.
Among other food safety scares, salmonella concerns prompted recalls of eggs and pistachio nut butter, while soft cheeses were tied to a multistate listeria outbreak that had sickened nine people, including one who died, as of June. Publix also recalled frozen GreenWise organic blueberries and mixed berries in July over possible E. coli contamination linked to illnesses in Florida and Georgia.
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