Cyclospora Outbreak Declared Over | California News

0:00It's September 11th. Welcome to California News Today, powered by AI. I'm Corey with the story. Alright, let's talk about this cyclosporial situation. Health officials have officially declared the biggest cyclosporial outbreak in US history to be over. This thing was tied to iceberg lettuce, and they're saying all the recalled products should be off the shells by now. We're talking about almost 13,000 reported cases linked to this specific outbreak, which really made up the bulk of a crazy surge in this parasitic illness this year. Now, this parasite, cyclospora, it's microscopic and it can get into produce if it's grown in contaminated soil or water. Since May 1st, the government has seen close to 20,000 confirmed cases, which is more than 16 times what they saw around this time. Last year. On top of that, there are over 6,000 suspected cases. While the iceberg lettuce outbreak was the big story, there are still thousands of other cases that haven't been connected to any specific food. Source. Michigan really took the brunt of it, with the most

1:02cases and sadly, the two deaths linked to this outbreak. Cyclosporiasis, the illness that causes, usually means watery diarrhea, with some pretty urgent bowel movements. It's not as common as salmonella or ecoli, and often, they can't even pinpoint where it came from. But in this case, investigators initially looked at lettuce from Taco Bell and it eventually led them to tailor farms in their iceberg lettuce that came from Central Mexico. The recall from tailor farms included a lot of packaged salads with iceberg lettuce mixed with other veggies. These went out to big restaurant chains like Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC. The FDA has wrapped up their inspections and sample collections at the lettuce growers and the processing plant in Mexico. They're still waiting on the results from those samples though. This whole situation has really highlighted a bigger issue. US regulators aren't doing as many international inspections that catch contaminated. Produce before it even gets to our plates. It's a reminder that food safety

2:03is a complex, global game.