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Test results create more confusion around cyclosporiasis outbreak · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: Federal health officials are still trying to determine the source
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  Speaker 1: of a multi state outbreak of cyclospora infections likely linked
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  Speaker 1: to shredded iceberg lettuce. There may be more than seven
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  Speaker 1: thousand cases of cyclost bariasis nationwide, the largest recorded outbreak
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  Speaker 1: in US history. The Centers for Disease Control says more
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  Speaker 1: than sixteen hundred people have been sickened and another five
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  Speaker 1: thousand and more than thirty states are under investigation. Our
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  Speaker 1: William Brangham has more on the latest.
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  Speaker 2: The FDA said today that a lettuce sample from the
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  Speaker 2: company Taylor Farms that was initially reported as positive for
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  Speaker 2: cyclospora was actually a false positive, But the agency also
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  Speaker 2: said that based on other data, it still believes Taylor
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  Speaker 2: Farms lettuce is linked to this outbreak. Some of that
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  Speaker 2: lettuce ended up at Taco Bell restaurants. It is all
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  Speaker 2: prompting more questions and adding to the confusion for the public. So,
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  Speaker 2: as we often do when things are confusing in the
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  Speaker 2: public health work world, we turned to Kitlyn Jedelina. She's
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  Speaker 2: adjunct professor at the Yale School of Public Health and
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  Speaker 2: the author of the Substack column Your Local Epidemiologist Kaitlin.
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  Speaker 2: Great to have you back. Help us understand the strange
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  Speaker 2: back and forth that's going on here. The FDA initially
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  Speaker 2: said to Taylor Farms, this is your lettuce. We found
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  Speaker 2: a sample of it, and then said, well, no, it's
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  Speaker 2: actually not that sample, but we still think it is
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  Speaker 2: connected to you. What do we know concretely about the
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  Speaker 2: origins of this outbreak?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is a nasty parasite and the only
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  Speaker 3: way to determine the common culprit is through patient interviews
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  Speaker 3: followed by lab genetic testing. And what we're seeing constantly
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  Speaker 3: as a very strong signal in patient interviews hasn't changed
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  Speaker 3: that it is some sort of lettuce, and the FDA
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  Speaker 3: trace back data through invoices and shipping records and receipts
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  Speaker 3: narrowed it down to Taylor Farms in Mexico. Taylor the FDA.
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  Speaker 3: Regardless of this false positive, the FDA continues to say
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  Speaker 3: Taylor Farms is overwhelmingly linked to the outbreak, and this
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  Speaker 3: is for two reasons. One is because the false positive
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  Speaker 3: was on lettuce coming from Mexico that was not part
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  Speaker 3: of the recall. So if it really truly was a positive,
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  Speaker 3: we would need a lot much larger recall and second
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  Speaker 3: outbreak investigations don't rely on one single lab test. They
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  Speaker 3: rely on the weight of all of the evidence, and
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  Speaker 3: like I said, epidemiological evidence, trace back data, and not
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  Speaker 3: finding a parasite on one lab sample doesn't mean it
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  Speaker 3: isn't there. So sure, this false positive whiplash was maybe
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  Speaker 3: a small setback, but it did not reverse what scientists
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  Speaker 3: have been discovering the past few weeks leading up to this.
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  Speaker 2: Do you have a sense as to why this is
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  Speaker 2: so complicated? It always seems like in past outbreaks it's
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  Speaker 2: very quickly identified salmonella from this farm on this type
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  Speaker 2: of produce. Why is this one proving to be such
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  Speaker 2: a tricky nut to crack?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is one of the most opaque, confusing,
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  Speaker 3: unclearly communicated outbreak responses I have ever seen. And it's
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  Speaker 3: really the perfect storm of three factors. One is the
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  Speaker 3: parasite itself. It's nasty. Symptoms can take up to twelve
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  Speaker 3: days to appear, so patients are being asked to recall
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  Speaker 3: meals from like two weeks ago, and I don't remember
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  Speaker 3: the last mail I eight two weeks ago. So it's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of laborious work second is that we have
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  Speaker 3: a hollowed out federal response right Neither the FDA nor
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  Speaker 3: the CDC has a permanent director right now. We've lost
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  Speaker 3: a lot of staff, some lab capacity, as well as
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  Speaker 3: a lot of reorganization these past eighteen months. And this
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  Speaker 3: federal coordinating as well as centralized communication is or lack
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  Speaker 3: of centralized communication, is causing a ton of confusion. And
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  Speaker 3: then the third factor we can't ignore is that this
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  Speaker 3: is a private company, Taylor Farms, linked to the outbreak,
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  Speaker 3: really muddling a lot of waters with its pr approach.
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  Speaker 3: So put together, many of us on this outside are
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  Speaker 3: putting these pieces together like a puzzle and trying to
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  Speaker 3: read between the lines. But the most obvious bottom line
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  Speaker 3: here is let's avoid iceberg lettuce in these twenty seven
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  Speaker 3: states until further notice.
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  Speaker 2: And anything else beyond that. I know a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people saw the news over the weekend at the end
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  Speaker 2: of last week thinking, Okay, I'll just avoid taco bell
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  Speaker 2: and shredded lettuce. Is there anything else people ought to
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  Speaker 2: be doing to protect themselves?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah? So distribution networks are complex and suppliers don't just
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  Speaker 3: serve one fast food chain. So this is not just
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  Speaker 3: taco bell. This may be grocery stores and food services
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  Speaker 3: operations in bulk, and we don't actually know exactly what
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  Speaker 3: is recalled. We actually have to decode it ourselves. The
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  Speaker 3: tailor farms supplied a very confusing recall notice. So the
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  Speaker 3: safe thing right now is to avoid iceberg lettuce all
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  Speaker 3: together in these twenty seven states. That's the safest thing
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  Speaker 3: to do. If you're high risk, like a pregnant woman
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  Speaker 3: or sixty five and older, or amino compromised, if you're
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  Speaker 3: especially in Michigan or some of these high case states,
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  Speaker 3: I would do extra caution with any produce that has
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  Speaker 3: hard to watch wash crevices like raspberries. A third sort
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  Speaker 3: of thing you can do is farmers' markets or local
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  Speaker 3: farmers often sides step these complex bagged lettuce supply chains,
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  Speaker 3: which is a partial fix and not risk free, but
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  Speaker 3: it's something that you can do. This all ends when
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  Speaker 3: this contaminated product is out of the supply chain, and
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  Speaker 3: that's going to take time.
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  Speaker 2: Caitlyn Jedelenina always great to hear from you. Thank you
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  Speaker 2: so much for being here.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for having me