California farm company identified as possible cyclosporiasis outbreak source: Reports

[SheltieLover]

https://wgntv.com/news/national/california-farm-company-identified-as-possible-cyclosporiasis-outbreak-source-reports/

National
California farm company identified as possible cyclosporiasis outbreak source: Reports

KTXL - A popular California company has been linked to the growing cyclosporiasis outbreak, according to a new report.

The Washington Post, citing two individuals familiar with the investigation, first reported Thursday that federal investigators have identified iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms to Taco Bell restaurants as a possible source of contamination.

CNN and others are also reporting the ongoing investigation into Taylor Farms as a source of the cyclosporiasis outbreak.

Much more at link.

[chicoescuela]

1. Irrigating with sewer water? Bad water winter in the Sierra Nevada so water may be sparse

[LeftInTX]

35. They have farms in Mexico and the lettuce in this case is supposedly from Mexico

NAFTA is supposed to assure the same standards, but clean potable drinking water without fecal coliforms is a big issue in Mexico. Almost everyone who lives there drinks bottled water.

I don't know how they assure that irrigation water in Mexico for produce to be exported to the US is not contaminated with fecal coliforms. We were planning to go MX City, but I got too busy, but everyone says to avoid eating salads.

Much of our frozen produce is imported from MX. I was surprised to see that was where my rhubarb was from! (Surprised that it even grows there!) And since the US consumes so much of this, there has to be some standards

Taylor probably has their own farms down there with cheap labor, while they also probably try to assure that irrigation water is consistent with US standards.

Fresh produce imported from Mexico is a major supplier to the U.S. market, though some shipments have faced scrutiny over fecal coliforms and associated pathogens. Contamination typically stems from livestock runoff into irrigation water, the use of untreated manure, or poor hygiene practices at packing facilities.While NAFTA (now the USMCA) governs the legal trade agreements between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, it does not bypass U.S. food safety standards. Produce imports are subject to the same health and sanitation rules as domestic goods. When federal agencies detect contamination, they enforce strict regulations to protect public health

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issues Import Alerts and automatic detentions for commodities or regions repeatedly linked to contamination or insanitary conditions. For example, past investigations into Mexican cilantro found objectionable field conditions—including the presence of human feces and toilet paper—resulting in seasonal import block

Earlier this year, cilantro from Puebla was contaminated with cyclosporiasis
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cms_ia/importalert_1148.html
Bulletin goes into detail

From 2013-2015, FDA and the Mexican regulatory authorities for farms, packing houses and processors in Mexico, Servicio Nacional de Sanidad, Inocuida y Calidad Agroalimentaria (SENASICA) and the Comisi�n Federal para la Proteccion contra Riesgos Sanitarios (COFEPRIS), investigated farms and packing houses in Mexico, including in the state of Puebla, where they found conditions and practices that may have resulted in the contamination of cilantro and other produce with human fecal pathogens. Objectionable conditions observed at multiple firms in the state of Puebla, MX including human feces and toilet paper found in growing fields and around packing houses; inadequately maintained toilets and hand washing facilities (lacking soap, toilet paper, running water, and/or paper towels) or a complete lack of toilet and hand washing facilities; food-contact surfaces visibly dirty and not washed; and water used for washing cilantro vulnerable to contamination from sewage/septic systems. In addition, at one such firm, water in a holding tank used for hand washing at the bathrooms was found to be positive for C. cayetanensis.

But I guess they caught it in time before it spread here.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/taco-bell-pulls-lettuce-u-020130260.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
"Consumers should avoid eating shredded iceberg lettuce from Mexico at Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia,"

Bags should say Product of Mexico, even if under a US label.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

2. Yikes..that will be the end of that farm!

[u4ic]

6. Given they've had so many recalls in the past few years

That's what should happen!

What a crap(pun intended) company they are!

[hunter]

16. It's not a farm -- they package and distribute produce, contracting with various growers.

I'm guessing they'll track this down to a specific field and investigate what went wrong.

Farm sanitation rules are strict and taken seriously by growers and farm workers. Otherwise incidents like this would be much more frequent.

This may or may not have anything to do with it, but one of the things that concerns me about California is the high population of homeless people living by rivers and streams.

We are a wealthy nation. It is a moral failure of us as a people that we cannot provide safe and secure housing for everyone.

"Get a job!" is not the answer. Someone living under a bridge down by the river is unemployable. Maybe they will always be unemployable. But you can't really know what their issues are until they've got a place to live.

[yardwork]

22. Another issue is the mistreatment of migrant workers.

Under Trump, I'm sure that growers are dropping some of the minimal human rights they were forced to offer in the past.

One of the things the growers fought was allowing migrant pickers bathroom breaks, and porta potties.

I don't want to get too graphic but a lot of people don't know how cruel and inhumane conditions are for many of the people who grow and pick and process our food.

Under Trump it's not surprising that the food supply is contaminated.

[Cirsium]

27. Not a farm

It is a produce packaging operation with 20,000 employees and facilaties in Mexico, Canada and Europe. They were implicated in two previous outbreaks.

[Retrograde]

3. Near Salinas

If you drive down 101 south from San Jose, you come to the Salinas Valley, which is miles and miles of lettuce fields - more than half of the lettuce sold in the US comes from here.

[SheltieLover]

7. Probably this farm!

[msongs]

4. have an unopened pack of taylor farms lettuce in the fridge. no news from costco about it tho

[SheltieLover]

8. Take it back. Show them the news article!

[msongs]

10. just noticed news article is about iceberg lettuce and costco sells romaine.

[SheltieLover]

11. Still if it's the same farm, I wouldn't eat it!

[Ms. Toad]

29. Taylor Farms is not a farm.

It is a packaging plant. The produce they pack comes from many farms.

[Attilatheblond]

5. What toilet/hand washing facitlities are (or aren't) available to farm workers in that company's fields?

Asking because I grew up in California and constantly read/heard about how farm workers were not provided basic sanitary facilities.

[SheltieLover]

9. Probably none.

[yardwork]

23. Just saw this post after I responded upthread.

You're absolutely right and under Trump, I'm sure growers are dropping even minimal requirements.

I expect contamination across the food chain under Trump.

[Cirsium]

28. Unlikely

Contaminated water is the most likely source, not the workers.

I have always considered the stories out of California about workers defecating in the fields to be sensationalistic, playing on people's ignorance about farms and latent antipathy to immigrant workers.

[Ms. Toad]

30. I grew up on a farm -

And when there aren't any bathrooms around . . .. I'm pretty sure the practice was universal.

Most of the crops we grew weren't for direct human consumption, but it wouldn't have made a difference.

So it's not really ignorance about farms. Just the reality of farm work when bathrooms might be miles away.

[Cirsium]

32. OK

We sometimes urinate in the field, which is harmless, but defecation is pretty rare and is very unlikely to cause outbreaks like this. We haul porta-potties out into the field when "bathrooms might be miles away" and the hours are long. I just saw a harvest crew go by here yesterday with porta-potties on one of the flatbeds.

Contaminated water is always the most likely culprit on the spread of disease. Water contaminated by sewage or manure is a risk factor vastly greater then if every worker defecated in the field every day. Hikers and campers are a far bigger problem with that than farm workers ever could be.

[Ms. Toad]

33. It is only less common (not rare)

Because people tend not to need to defecate as frequently as the need to urinate. But explosive diarrhea does change that calculation. I occasionally have medication induced diarrhea that sounds a lot like this diarrhea - and the need has hit as frequently as every 15-30 minutes for hours.

If the source is human fecal matter from defecating in the field, it would only have gotten this significant because of the post-field production process, which washes, chops, and bags intermingled lettuce from hundreds of thousands of heads, spreading the "gift" among way more consumers that contaminating a single plant would.

I'm not saying this outbreak was caused by direct human contamination - just that believing farmworkers don't defecate in the fields isn't based on ignorance about farms.

[Cirsium]

38. I speak from experience

My years of working on the farm tell me that farm workers don't defecate in the fields for all practical purposes. In other countries, in other times I can't say. No one with explosive diarrhea would try to work in the field here. My experience with the health department officials and many produce safety workshops also informs my view on this.

I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying it is unlikely, while contaminated water is very common as a disease vector.

[Ms. Toad]

39. As do I.

And, if I'm not mistaken, the lettuce in question came from Mexico (another country).

It may well come from contaminated water - I'm not trying to identify specifically how the outbreak originated. My only point was to address your claim that suggestions that farmworkers use the fields as a bathroom, when necessary, were being made out of ignorance of farming.

[Cirsium]

40. Your objection

Last edited Fri Jul 17, 2026, 08:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Your objection, then, is to my claim that people who assume that disease outbreaks are caused by workers defecating in the field are ignorant about agriculture.

Yes, it is possible that someone who has knowledge about agriculture could also have experience with defecation in the field.

Many people have never worked on a farm or in a food processing facility. They picture contamination in terms of individual behavior because that's a familiar mental model: "Someone didn't wash their hands." They may not have thought about how a recirculating wash system, a contaminated irrigation source, or a centralized processing line can amplify contamination across thousands of pounds of produce.

That doesn't necessarily make them ignorant in a pejorative sense. It does mean they're often reasoning from intuition rather than from how large-scale food production actually works.

[Attilatheblond]

41. Didn't say they were deficating in the fields. I know they generally have porta potties. But fresh water to wash hands?

Oh, that's not usually something big agra corporations worry about. And I have heard not all of the growers are careful about when/where the portas get emptied.

[Cirsium]

42. Sure

I'm not saying worker hygiene is unimportant or that it has never caused contamination. I'm saying that when the outcome is a large multi-state outbreak affecting thousands of people, I would first examine the contamination pathways capable of operating at that scale: water systems, centralized processing, or other mechanisms that can distribute contamination broadly.

Food safety is fundamentally a systems problem. Modern produce production relies on sanitation controls, clean water, equipment sanitation, worker hygiene, environmental monitoring, and process controls. Failures in any of these can lead to contamination.

The key issue is scale. An individual worker with poor hygiene can contaminate some produce. But contaminated irrigation water or contaminated wash water in a centralized processing facility can distribute pathogens to thousands or even millions of servings. These are amplification mechanisms.

Epidemiological investigations have traced different outbreaks to different causes, including irrigation water, contaminated processing environments, infected food handlers, animal intrusion into fields, and other sources. The point is not that worker hygiene never matters. It clearly does. The point is that, for very large multi-state outbreaks, I would first investigate the contamination pathways capable of amplifying contamination across large volumes of food.

[Retrograde]

34. One of the better things Arnold did

was sign a bill requiring clean water and toilet facilities for farm workers. Most of these are port-a-potties but at least their something. How well this is enforced is something else

[LeftInTX]

37. Supposedly this lettuce was imported from Mexico

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/taco-bell-pulls-lettuce-u-020130260.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

Taylor Farms has production in Mexico.

NAFTA is supposed to assure the same standards, but you know how that goes.

There was the same organism on imported cilantro earlier this year from a particular farm in Puebla, but it was caught and halted.

[jeffreyi]

12. Yikes.

Taylor farms bagged salads are common around here.

[SheltieLover]

13. Don't eat them! Grow lettuce - 35 days to harvest

Or go to local farmers markets.

[SheltieLover]

14. There is a gardening forum

Some real expert gardeners there & very willing go help.

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1159

[Attilatheblond]

15. And check your local community to see if there are community gardens

Some rent little garden plots which is great for apartment dwellers. Community gardens, and local Ag extension people are also good sources for information and inspiration.

[SheltieLover]

17. Excellent idea!

[malaise]

18. Are farms affected by Donvict's immigration policies?

What caused this mess?

[SheltieLover]

19. Could be, Malaise

No idea.

But slob cutting food inspectors definitely is!

[hunter]

20. The labor contractors could be hiring less experienced workers...

... as skilled undocumented workers leave or are deported.

Undocumented workers might also be living in rougher circumstances if they fear ICE will find them if they have a fixed address. Landlords could be more reluctant to rent rooms to undocumented workers.

It's speculation, but clearly the assholes in the Trump administration don't care about workplace or product safety and have done a lot to make it worse.

[malaise]

26. Thanks

I am really curious about this

[yardwork]

25. Growers are affected by Trump's policies in a lot of bad ways.

I'm sure the inhumane treatment of the people who grow, pick, and process our food is worse than ever.

It took decades to force growers to offer bathroom breaks and porta-potties to migrant workers. I'm guessing that they're not allowing those basic needs now because RFK, Jr. pulled all the inspections.

I'm going to guess that meat processing plants are probably back to 1930s standards. Nobody is enforcing worker safety and food safety laws. The workers themselves are terrified of deportation.

I hate to sound negative but this might be only the beginning.

[Cirsium]

31. Sanitation

Basic sanitation - sewage treatment and water management - is nothing new. Water testing is not difficult and if a supplier can't or won't test, then their produce should not be approved for public sale.

There is no excuse for these outbreaks, and no excuse for the right wings attacks on and dismantling of the public health and safety infrastructure. When there is an outbreak, it needs to be traced to the source. That requires funding and expertise. Thanks to the Michigan department of health (where the hell are Trump's feds???) this issue was traced back to a produce packaging operation, not a farm, despite the name "Taylor Farms." They are multinational, have some 20,000 employees, and are implicated in two previous outbreaks.

[biocube]

21. I really wish we'd be a lot less afraid of "chemicals" and more afraid of diseases

NM

[yardwork]

24. Everything RFK, Jr. does is the opposite of good.

People go on about "natural." Well, arsenic is natural. Parasites are natural. Mold is natural. The measles virus is a natural thing doing what it does.

If we don't protect our food, medicines and bodies from things that "naturally" eat or poison us then we are losing a war.

Blathering on about seed oils and testosterone is not a magic amulet protecting us from nature.

[StarryNite]

36. I'm not sure how chemicals could have prevented this particular issue.