A customer buys cilantro at a Walmart Supercenter on July 23, 2026 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
A major nationwide outbreak of cyclosporiasis linked to shredded iceberg lettuce has spread to nine states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The four newly annexed states — Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania — join hard-hit Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan. Cyclospora is an invisible parasite that often infects humans through contaminated food or water and causes cyclosporiasis, a stomach illness that can cause symptoms including severe diarrhea. Patients may require hospitalization, but no parasite-related deaths have been recorded this year.
This outbreak is already the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak reported in the US this year, with thousands of infections recorded across the country. That’s far more than the roughly 200 to 1,000 cases reported each year.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is investigating separate outbreaks of cyclosporiasis linked to an unknown food product or products. The United States is trying to investigate the sources of the virus and contain its spread amid confusion over its response to the outbreak and staff cuts that some experts say have made it harder to contain.
US food and health regulators have cracked down on iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms.
Mexican health authorities on Thursday said samples of lettuce and water from a Taylor Farms plant in central Mexico were found to be free of cyclospora. However, that result does not contradict the Food and Drug Administration’s earlier identification of Taylor Farms de Mexico as a possible source of the outbreak.
The first cases began to show symptoms in mid-May. In addition, the long incubation period of the infection meant that the plant responsible would have been distributed weeks ago.
Last week, the FDA said the manufacturing giant provided frozen iceberg lettuce to Taco Bell restaurants where people ate it before getting sick. Taylor Farms also issued a voluntary recall of all iceberg lettuce at its Guanajuato, Mexico facility, and Taco Bell pulled the affected lettuce from its restaurants.
The CDC has so far counted 1,947 people infected with cyclospora who also reported eating at Taco Bell in nine states. Illness in this iceberg lettuce-related outbreak began on June 22 and continued through July 20, the CDC said. The federal count lags behind the state count, so some of the states affected by the outbreak have reported much higher infection rates.
But Taylor Farms has drawn criticism for its response to the outbreak. Some health experts blasted its recall notice, which included abbreviations and did not allow consumers to easily understand if they had bought or consumed any of the affected products.
After the FDA reported on fake lettuce samples from Taylor Farms on Sunday, the company issued a statement saying that health officials had apologized. The FDA later clarified that it did not apologize to Taylor Farms, and the company removed the statement from X, although it is still available on its website. The agency also said it is still investigating the company’s iceberg lettuce as a possible source of the outbreak.
Taylor Farms supplies lettuce and other products to major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Whole Foods, as well as restaurant chains including Taco Bell.
