{"id":978949,"date":"2026-08-04T00:26:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/978949\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T00:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:26:19","slug":"taco-bell-reportedly-knew-about-explosive-diarrhea-outbreak-weeks-before-telling-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/978949\/","title":{"rendered":"Taco Bell Reportedly Knew About Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak Weeks Before Telling Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, Taco Bell became the public face of the ongoing Cyclospora parasitic outbreak<\/a> after some locations in Michigan began voluntarily removing lettuce. Now, new reporting indicates that Taco Bell\u2019s parent company, Yum! Brands, was allegedly aware of the explosive diarrhea-causing parasite and its connection to some of its locations roughly two weeks before it communicated with customers publicly about the situation.<\/p>\n

On August 3, Bloomberg reported<\/a> that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services called Yum Brands on July 2 to talk about the outbreak, according to documents it had obtained through a public records request. Michigan officials then sent a follow-up email to Yum Brands asking to connect with the company\u2019s supply chain quality assurance and comms teams for a \u201cdiscussion about any intervention or notification that could be taken\u201d at that time to reduce \u201cthe number of cases in the future.\u201d Another email obtained by the outlet confirms that around this time, Taco Bell was already receiving media inquiries about Cyclospora-infected lettuce.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough it was reassuring to hear that you had not received complaints and your staff were not reporting illness, we have a strong signal from our epidemiologic interviews that we need to continue to work with Taco Bell,\u201d wrote Michigan state epidemiologist Sarah Lyon-Callo at the time.<\/p>\n

On July 6, Michigan officials asked Taco Bell and Yum Brands for documents related to the outbreak, adding that it needed the information in a \u201ctimely manner to preserve public health.\u201d On the very next day, July 7, local media in Detroit began reporting<\/a> that some Taco Bell locations had begun putting up signs outside that read:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe are currently unable to sell Lettuce, Cilantro Onion, Pico de Gallo, and Guacamole due to a nationwide recall. We apologize for the inconvenience. Any items ordered that normally come with these items WILL NOT contain them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At the time, neither Taco Bell nor Yum Brands had publicly confirmed such a recall. The CDC and state officials had also not requested a recall of lettuce. These signs led many to connect the outbreak to Taco Bell.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until July 14,<\/a> 12 days after Yum Brands and Taco Bell were alerted to the outbreak possibly affecting some of their locations, that the company publicly confirmed it was removing some items from its menus due to the outbreak. Four days later, and over two weeks after that first call with state officials, Taco Bell issued a note app apology<\/a> online confirming it had removed Taylor Farms lettuce and produce from its locations and begging people to come back to Taco Bell.<\/p>\n

The Cyclospora outbreak has infected more than 6,707 people across 45 states, according to the CDC. Officials and experts in the United States are investigating possible other sources for the outbreak. At least two people with underlying health conditions have died due to the parasite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Taco Bell became the public face of the ongoing Cyclospora parasitic outbreak after some locations in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":978950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,16460,375896,9535,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-978949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cdc","tag-explosive-diarrhea","tag-taco-bell","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117034404304171744","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978949","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=978949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/978950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}