What's going on: Unfortunately, it sounds like your salad spinner won’t be seeing much action any time soon. Just days after the FDA pointed the finger at shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico as the source of the cyclospora outbreak, the agency is backtracking. Turns out, that finding was based on tests of lettuce samples that came back with false positives for the parasite. Still, the FDA says this doesn’t change its conclusions so far: The outbreak — which has sickened 8,000 people across the country — is linked to shredded iceberg from Taylor Farms that was shipped to some Taco Bell locations. (Taco Bell loyalists have chosen a side, and it’s “Live más.”) The fast-food chain has pulled the lettuce from its kitchens, but officials can’t yet rule out other suppliers or produce. Not exactly the boost of fiber we were hoping for.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg: Get ready for a game of government telephone. A former CDC doctor who oversaw parasite outbreaks like this one told CNN that, last year, he tried to warn the agency’s leadership that major budget and staffing cuts would handicap their response to future outbreaks. The White House insists those funds were eliminated from global programs. The CDC says "au contraire" — health officials at home used that money, too. But this isn’t the first time Trump administration cuts have come under scrutiny. Last year, DOGE accidentally fired USDA employees working on the bird flu, and then scrambled (sorry) to rehire them. Experts also say spending cuts are to blame for the US’s weak response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has killed nearly 1,000 people so far. The White House maintains that those cuts were to eliminate waste and redundancy.
