{"id":950966,"date":"2026-07-22T02:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/950966\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T02:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T02:52:18","slug":"cyclosporiasis-outbreak-are-new-yorkers-more-cautious-with-food-choices-amid-uncertainty-nationwide-over-spread-of-diarrhea-inducing-parasite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/950966\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyclosporiasis outbreak: Are New Yorkers more cautious with food choices amid uncertainty nationwide over spread of diarrhea-inducing parasite?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cyclosporiasis outbreak<\/a> impacting the U.S. produce market and leaving customers at risk of\u00a0explosive diarrhea has not\u00a0significantly affected<\/a>\u00a0the items they buy<\/a> or how much produce they\u2019re selling, New York City shoppers and grocery store employees have told amNewYork.<\/p>\n

What troubled many, however, has been the lack of clarity about how the outbreak started, and what products are most responsible.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Taylor Farms, the produce company at the center of the investigation into the national cyclosporiasis outbreak<\/a>, issued a voluntary recall of some products, which did not appear to apply to products in New York State, but the nationwide spike in cases raised questions among some.<\/p>\n

Sam Watson, was shopping in Brooklyn on Tuesday and she told amNewYork that she felt like she had relatively clear information about what to do during the outbreak.\n<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI feel like it\u2019s not crazy concerning,\u201d said Watson, who is also pregnant. \u201cWe haven\u2019t really changed too much about our food purchasing, just being extra careful to wash everything, like, three times with vinegar and baking soda [as] my mom said.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that she has to be very conscious about what she consumes anyway.\n<\/p>\n

\u201c[I\u2019m] \u200ajust being a little bit more careful with salads,\u201d Watson said. \u201cBut you have to be careful about that with pregnancy anyway.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, an exposure tracing kerfuffle, followed by a dispute over public information, caused some confusion about the outbreak\u2019s origin and subsequent investigation.\n<\/p>\n

Following an announcement that the FDA had traced the nationwide outbreak to popular salad kit producer and lettuce distributor, Taylor Farms, the federal government rolled back its statements about testing. It said Sunday that a test showing the presence of Cyclospora in Taylor Farm iceberg lettuce from Central Mexico was actually a false positive.<\/p>\n

The Salinas, CA, based company said Sunday that the FDA \u201capologized\u201d for the false positive, and said \u201cat this moment, FDA has not identified a single positive product test result for Cyclospora.\u201d<\/p>\n

A back and forth ensued, with the FDA saying that, despite a false positive, there was ample evidence to connect the outbreak to the Taylor Farms Central Mexico iceberg lettuce. Taylor Farms then posted on Monday what it called a \u201csummary of the facts\u201d to clear up any confusion about its cooperation with health officials.<\/p>\n

Taylor Farms has not responded to a request for comment.\n<\/p>\n

New Yorkers say they \u2018don\u2019t want to be an experiment\u2019 in cyclospora outbreak\n<\/p>\n

For Marc Plaskett, the guessing game wasn\u2019t worth it. Plaskett told amNewYork that one of his friends was diagnosed with the foodborne illness cyclosporiasis early on in the outbreak and that he didn\u2019t want to go through the prolonged, intense diarrhea that his friend experienced.<\/p>\n

Plaskett said that one of his staples on his shopping trips is an arugula, spinach blend, but he\u2019s forgoing it on Tuesday to protect against possible exposure to cyclosporiasis.\n<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI\u2019m just taking my vitamins and I\u2019m avoiding greens,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n

Plaskett told amNewYork that even if he contracted the parasite, he wasn\u2019t very concerned with dying, but that he did worry about being in \u201cextreme agony.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI don\u2019t want to really be an experiment,\u201d Plaskett said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to test out the different lettuces and find out the hard way, and then I end up with the parasite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other shoppers told amNewYork that they felt like their general eating habits didn\u2019t leave much room for exposure to the parasite. One shopper, James, who declined to provide his last name, picked up fresh organic herbs while telling amNewYork that his lifestyle didn\u2019t bring him into contact with most of the produce he\u2019d heard was at risk for Cyclospora.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI always stay away from bagged produce anyway,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I kind of related it to that.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy for the Consumer Federation of America said that Taylor Farms\u2019 reaction to the outbreak seemed \u201c\u200alike a very cynical response.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Gremillion wrote an article<\/a> for the Consumer Federation of America Tuesday, criticizing Taylor Farms\u2019 recall list and details for being confusing and ambiguous for using undefined abbreviations in consumer facing information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking this recall notice and communications at face value if you are a consumer in New York, there\u2019s not, not anything you need to do,\u201d Gremillion said.\n<\/p>\n

However, Gremillion said that for folks wanting to be cautious, \u201cat this point, I\u2019d be comfortable telling people maybe just avoid Taylor Farms.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

New York State Department of Health officials told amNewYork that this year\u2019s outbreak in New York was not \u201ca major deviation from the norm\u201d and that it was continuing to investigate the outbreak, interview people who had tested positive for the parasite and communicate with the Center for Disease Control (CDC).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe New York State Department of Health takes the spread of diseases seriously and works with federal partners and local health departments to identify potential outbreaks and provide guidance on prevention and treatment,\u201d A NYSDOH spokesperson said. \u201cWhile cyclosporiasis is generally not life-threatening, as many people with healthy immune systems recover without treatment, the Department encourages all New Yorkers to be aware of the best practices to prevent cyclosporiasis and other infections common in the summer months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cyclosporiasis outbreak impacting the U.S. produce market and leaving customers at risk of\u00a0explosive diarrhea has not\u00a0significantly affected\u00a0the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":950967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,368249,365952,277324,138198,382806,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,62540,380318,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-950966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-cyclospora","tag-cyclosporiasis","tag-department-of-health-and-mental-hygiene","tag-diarrhea","tag-lettuce-recall","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-state-department-of-health","tag-taylor-farms","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116961368286938706","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}