Taylor Fresh Foods announced Friday that it is voluntarily pulling all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico out of the United States. This sweeping move follows an escalating outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic stomach bug known for causing weeks of severe diarrhea. Federal health officials recently linked the illness to shredded lettuce served at several Taco Bell locations throughout the Midwest, specifically in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. While the Food and Drug Administration indicated that the potential source might be limited to a single independent farm representing less than one percent of the national supply, Taylor Farms decided to remove all product from that entire region indefinitely as a precaution.
The scale of the outbreak appears significant, with health officials suggesting that multiple clusters may be active across at least 34 states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 7,000 people may have been sickened, though they have officially confirmed about 1,644 cases while continuing to investigate thousands more. So far, no deaths have been reported. Michigan has borne the brunt of the crisis, reporting over 5,000 cases and more than 100 hospitalizations. Interestingly, many patients in Michigan did not report eating at Taco Bell or any other fast food chain, although lettuce remained a common thread in their dietary histories leading up to the infection.
Taco Bell stated it has already removed the suspected lettuce from its nationwide supply chain and is working to replace it in affected states. Tracking these types of outbreaks remains notoriously difficult because the parasite can take up to two weeks to manifest symptoms after ingestion. For Taylor Farms, this incident adds to a troubling history of safety lapses involving Mexican sourcing. The company was tied to a similar cyclosporiasis outbreak in 2013 affecting dozens of states and was most recently implicated in a deadly E coli outbreak earlier this year linked to slivered onions used on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.
