A California-based farm claims the Food and Drug Administration has apologized for linking it to a parasitic outbreak that has caused explosive diarrhea among thousands of people.
Taylor Farms said Sunday it had carried out a voluntary recall of lettuce grown in Central Mexico on FDA advice as it investigated outbreaks of Cyclospora.
But the company issued a statement Monday saying the FDA had apologized, and the advice was based on false positive result.
"Based on initial information provided by health officials, in an abundance of caution, we completed a voluntary recall of iceberg lettuce from central Mexico," Taylor Farms said in a statement. "Recalled product was limited to iceberg lettuce grown and processed in central Mexico. All other Taylor Farms products, including all Taylor Farms brand products available for purchase, are not involved in the recall."
The company added that, since that recall, FDA had concluded that the parasite had not been linked to the company.
"Today, we were informed that the FDA made a mistake and this was a false positive. To be clear, at this moment, FDA has not identified a single positive product test result for Cyclospora," the statement added. "Our thoughts remain with everyone who has fallen ill in this outbreak. We are committed to working with public health authorities as the ongoing outbreak investigation continues."
However, the agency has not backed away from its conclusion that Taylor Farms is linked to the outbreak through its traceback investigation.
“It does not mean they are walking it back,” Susan Mayne, a former head of the FDA’s center on food safety that oversees outbreak investigations, told the Washington Post. “Absence of evidence (of a positive test result) is never evidence of absence.”
The Centers for Disease Control has officially confirmed that at least 1,645 people have fallen ill and 141 have been hospitalized, most of them after eating lettuce sent to Taco Bell. The agency is investigating more than 5,100 additional illnesses that may have been caused by the parasite.
However, the Taylor Farms announcement was greeted with broad skepticism after the company's executives reportedly met Thursday evening at the White House to try to distance themselves from the parasitic outbreak, and critics pounced on the FDA's response to the outbreak.
"Like most people, I assume FDA is lying here to help a big Trump donor And this is horrifying," speculated writer Nathan Newman. "Since whether under Reagan or the Bushes, I'd assume FDA POLICY was evil, but never doubted actual scientific tests were being conducted professionally. Trump has broken that."
"This unfortunately will only further erode confidence in the CDC and public health," sighed health policy analyst Jenn Kaufman. "How many people dropped any precautions they were taking because they thought the source had been uncovered? I don’t want to believe this because the majority of the people still at the CDC are dedicated public health professionals — but it’s not a good look that this happens after Taylor Farms met with the White House and FDA."
"There are two possibilities here. Taylor Farms paid a ton of money to get the FDA to say this. Or DOGE decimated the FDA so significantly that they managed to fuck up a basic sample test. Neither one is great!" declared science journalist Erin Biba.