The first two deaths related to the multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis have been reported from Michigan, though both had conditions that may have amplified dehydration issues prompted by the lettuce-borne illness.
Death from cyclosporiasis is considered uncommon, but the spread of the illness is now widespread, with cases now in 15 states. In Michigan alone, there are 11,234 cases, including 193 hospitalizations. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control count 18,000 cases of explosive diarrhea, intestinal infection and resulting dehydration.
The illness is known to exist during spring and summer, but this year’s numbers are much higher than normal. Its specific cause is a single-celled parasite that lives exclusively in humans and causes particularly violent diarrhea. Infection is almost always through ingesting food or water contaminated with feces — improper sanitation at farms or food processing facilities. Failure to provide field workers with adequate toilets or sinks can mean outbreaks.
Since the disease emerged a few weeks ago, there has been effort to identify its origin with efforts centering on Taylor Farms irrigation and operations in Mexico. Taylor Farms, which issued a recall, distributes iceberg lettuce mostly to market chains and restaurants across the Midwest. Early on, news reported that Taylor Fresh Farms was a million-dollar donor to Trump political causes and noted that while there is scrutiny of the food problem, there has been none by prosecutorial agencies.
The State of Illness
There has been relatively less focus on whether the probabilities for problems with this food-borne disease – as with contagious illnesses more generally – were worsened by administration budget cuts and Elon Musk’s DOGE attacks on government inspectors since Donald Trump took office in 2025.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ballyhooed a change in the nation’s basic food pyramid to emphasize more meat, dairy and unprocessed foods, but has been light on concerns about the rise of actual diseases like measles, flu, and communicable illnesses. Together with the Department of Government Efficiency “chain saw” approach to government services, Team Trump has attacked vaccines, medical research, CDC warnings and operations, and more.
The Trump administration has targeted many supports that keep the Affordable Care Act afloat, as well as undercutting Medicare, Medicaid and health-adjacent programs for food stamps. It has cut foreign AID efforts almost entirely, affecting health and food concerns globally.
Last July 2025, the CDC quietly changed the monitoring of cyclospora from mandatory to optional in Foodnet, its pathogen-tracking partnership with 10 state health departments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration
In The American Prospect, writer Ryan Cooper says baldly, “Trump has wreaked havoc on American food safety infrastructure.”
The DOGE Role
New Republic and Wired argue that in the name of eliminating “waste,” DOGE cut the office meant to monitor cyclospora from 11 employees to three. Instead, we now have human “waste” of a different sort, allowing one unnamed senator to label what is going on as “DOGE shit.”
Scientist Joel Barratt, who formerly led that operation, told Wired that it’s not only cyclospora at risk, but other more dangerous pathogens, including screwworms and measles viruses. This week, two restaurant chains pulled jalapeño peppers after salmonella reports.
Cooper’s analysis details how the administration devastated American food safety and public health infrastructure in ways relevant to the outbreak, though the White House continues to say that cuts in funding did not impact response to cyclospora at all.
Cooper argues that when agencies are staffed, we don’t hear about health threats. In DOGE’s hands, lack of threat translated into targeting of waste.
As part of his initial wholesale attack on food safety, Trump dissolved a Department of Agriculture National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods meant to provide scientific advice and coordinate best practices for defending against dangerous microbes. Over a year, the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service had lost 913 staff, while the Food and Nutrition Service lost 564. The agency’s National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection was also axed. More than 20,000 workers left USDA last year.
Among public health agencies, the CDC has lost nearly 3,000 under Trump, while the Food and Drug Administration has lost more than 4,000. Food safety inspections have dwindled as a result. In February 2025, then FDA Deputy Commissioner Jim Jones resigned from the agency’s Human Foods Program, which monitors food safety, after dozens of his workers were sacked.
Trump has bragged of telling corporations he is eliminating regulations, seemingly inviting corporate workarounds for now-eliminated safety and environmental concerns.
State health departments are trying to replace federal services. Stat News says most state health departments are not really equipped to collect and compare case information across multiple states. Coordinating national responses to national problems is the most basic responsibility of the federal government, and under Trump it just is not happening.
Eliminating half the National Weather Service’s forecasting balloons over “waste” concerns has demonstrably worsened preparations for sudden storms. It is not a difficult leap to conclude that the same is coming true for food safety.
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