Overview
- The CDC and FDA said Friday they have epidemiologically linked a large, multi‑state Cyclospora outbreak to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell and traced that product to a single supplier with operations in central Mexico.
- Taco Bell removed the implicated shredded lettuce from restaurants in several states and excluded the identified supplier from its U.S. supply chain while at least one major produce company announced voluntary withdrawals of Mexico‑sourced iceberg lettuce.
- The FDA has dispatched inspectors to Mexican farms and a processing plant and increased inspections and sampling at U.S. ports of entry to determine where contamination occurred and whether the lettuce reached other buyers.
- Official counts remain in flux: health agencies report about 1,644 laboratory‑confirmed cases linked to the Taco Bell investigation, hundreds of hospitalizations, and thousands more cases under review with totals reported as high as roughly 7,000 across 34 states.
- Cyclospora is a parasite spread by contaminated food or water that needs days in the environment to become infectious, which makes pinpointing exposure difficult and means public health officials must follow supply‑chain records and environmental testing to find the source.