The Oklahoma State Department of Health has confirmed 56 cases of cyclosporiasis a week ago. That number has risen to over 500 this week.
I may have come down with that or something similar earlier this week. The diarrhea is no joke. Hoping I am pulling out of it today and can go back to work tomorrow.
My overnight job involves keeping the showers and bathrooms spotless. I do a very good job pressure washing and keeping the restrooms spotless, often get compliments for having the cleanest truck stop.
Something needs to be done with the foreign truck drivers who cannot and will not properly use a toilet. They leave traces of feces everywhere, if one looks closely, which is my job to do. Dirty filthy foreigners. They leave soiled toilet tissue and water bottles on the floor around the toilet instead of just dispose of it in the trash can.
Good thing I have a good immune system, haven't been sick in almost two years.
The FDA found cyclospora at a Mexican farm linked to a Taylor Farms lettuce outbreak that sickened nearly 13,000 people across the U.S.
nypost.com
FDA identifies source of cyclospora outbreak linked to lettuce
The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that its inspectors detected cyclospora at the
Mexican farm blamed for the largest foodborne illness outbreak of the parasite in U.S. history.
Despite the finding,
the FDA said it’s unclear how the parasite
got into lettuce at Taylor Farms’ facility.
The agency has now closed its investigation into the outbreak, which led to nearly 13,000 cases of diarrhea and other illnesses across the U.S.
The announcement comes more than six weeks after the agency sent its investigators to the farm in Guanajuato, Mexico.
The visit was the agency’s first time there in more than seven years following a steep drop in international food safety inspections after the COVID-19 pandemic.
FDA inspectors said Friday
they found cyclospora in two places: a wastewater tank and a drainage ditch used for lettuce cultivation.
While it’s unclear how the contamination took place, the FDA said the samples provide “strong epidemiological data” linking the outbreak to the Taylor Farms site.
In a separate statement, Taylor Farms attributed the contamination cited by FDA to an independent grower “who is no longer part of our supplier program.”
The FDA still couldn’t determine how cyclospora from the farm leaked, after the agency declared the outbreak over last month.
“Our facility remains closed in central Mexico as we work with our research team to implement enhanced safety protocols from the field to the facility,” the company said.
U.S. officials last month
declared the outbreak had ended.
Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC.
The illness, called cyclosporiasis, is less common than foodborne illnesses caused by other germs, including salmonella and E. coli.
The parasite is spread through human feces, and it still isn’t clear how sewage could have contaminated enough food to sicken so many people.
Regulators from Mexico’s food safety authority announced in August that their own investigation did not detect cyclospora in the lettuce or water at the facility.
That conclusion came days after the FDA was forced to retract a faulty test result that had incorrectly identified cyclospora in a sample of lettuce from Taylor Farms collected at the border.
On Friday, Christina Jewett, Alice Callahan and Caroline Hopkins Legaspi of the New York Times reported FDA’s finding in the terms it deserved.
www.marlerblog.com
What FDA confirmed
FDA’s words, nearly: the positive samples show the parasite was present where the lettuce was grown and processed, and they add to the strong epidemiological data and traceback convergence supporting the link between this outbreak and the recalled shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico. In July, Michigan’s interviews and Taco Bell’s supply chain records pointed at one supplier. Taylor Farms recalled the lettuce itself,
236,192 cases sold to Walmart, Subway, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell and Sysco. On August 20,
CDC said genotyping showed the parasites from sick people were genetically related to one another. Now the parasite is in the water leaving the plant and the ditch beside the field. The source question is closed. The epidemiology, the traceback, the company’s own recall, the patient genotyping and the environmental samples point to the same place.