Trump Attack on CDC Monitoring Blamed in ‘Explosive Diarrhea’ Outbreak
“The catastrophic cuts Trump and RFK Jr. made to disease surveillance and research keep coming back to haunt us,” said one critic.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens during a tour of the kitchen at Cunningham Elementary School in Austin, Texas on February 27, 2026.
(Photo by Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Brad Reed
Jul 14, 2026
“The catastrophic cuts Trump and RFK Jr. made to disease surveillance and research keep coming back to haunt us,” said one critic.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens during a tour of the kitchen at Cunningham Elementary School in Austin, Texas on February 27, 2026.
(Photo by Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
Brad Reed
Jul 14, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
The Trump administration is coming under fire for its response to the outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a foodborne illness that causes explosive diarrhea and has so far been documented in more than two dozen states.
Public health officials still have not identified the source of the outbreak, which typically spreads via contaminated produce.
In an interview with Axios published Saturday, David Freedman, professor emeritus of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, suggested that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not been on top of tracking the outbreak the same way it has been in the past.
“Right now it’s individual state health departments that are having to speak up,” remarked Freedman, “because the CDC is really not following it on a day-to-day basis.”
Omer Awan, vice chair and associate program director for the diagnostic radiology residency at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, told PBS in an interview published Monday that infections will likely only grow if the government doesn’t track down the source of the outbreak quickly.
“Because we haven’t pinned it down, that means that these cases are likely to disseminate,” said Awan. “People are still eating the contaminated food that’s leading to so many cases.”
Awan added that mass firings at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the leadership of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., were hindering CDC’s ability to track the disease.
“The HHS and the federal government laid off a lot of CDC employees,” said Awan. “Many of them were the very employees that would track these particular outbreaks. And the other is that, from July of 2025 last year, the CDC has no longer required reporting cyclosporiasis. It’s become optional to report this to the CDC’s Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network.”
Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care, pointed to the CDC decision to stop monitoring the cyclospora parasite as an example of the Trump administration putting Americans “in another shitty situation after laying waste to our public health infrastructure and gutting emergency preparedness.”
“Because RFK Jr.'s CDC turned a blind eye to dangerous foodborne pathogens,” Woodhouse added, “this outbreak spread quickly and states are now scrambling to do their own detective work on what’s causing it. The catastrophic cuts Trump and RFK Jr. made to disease surveillance and research keep coming back to haunt us, yet they want to cut even deeper to make up for their tax breaks for billionaires.”
The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that both federal and state officials have launched an investigation into whether fast food chain Taco Bell “played a role” in the cyclosporiasis outbreak.
According to the Post’s sources, some people who got sick from the disease said they had eaten at Taco Bell shortly becoming symptomatic, although others who were infected by the parasite said they had not eaten at the fast food chain before growing ill.
“Public health officials have said this season’s unusually high number of illnesses, now reported in more than 30 states,” reported the Post, “means more information and more patients to help identify shared foods, shopping habits and restaurant visits among those sickened to help determine the source.”
The Trump administration is coming under fire for its response to the outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a foodborne illness that causes explosive diarrhea and has so far been documented in more than two dozen states.
Public health officials still have not identified the source of the outbreak, which typically spreads via contaminated produce.
In an interview with Axios published Saturday, David Freedman, professor emeritus of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, suggested that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not been on top of tracking the outbreak the same way it has been in the past.
“Right now it’s individual state health departments that are having to speak up,” remarked Freedman, “because the CDC is really not following it on a day-to-day basis.”
Omer Awan, vice chair and associate program director for the diagnostic radiology residency at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, told PBS in an interview published Monday that infections will likely only grow if the government doesn’t track down the source of the outbreak quickly.
“Because we haven’t pinned it down, that means that these cases are likely to disseminate,” said Awan. “People are still eating the contaminated food that’s leading to so many cases.”
Awan added that mass firings at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the leadership of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., were hindering CDC’s ability to track the disease.
“The HHS and the federal government laid off a lot of CDC employees,” said Awan. “Many of them were the very employees that would track these particular outbreaks. And the other is that, from July of 2025 last year, the CDC has no longer required reporting cyclosporiasis. It’s become optional to report this to the CDC’s Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network.”
Brad Woodhouse, president of Protect Our Care, pointed to the CDC decision to stop monitoring the cyclospora parasite as an example of the Trump administration putting Americans “in another shitty situation after laying waste to our public health infrastructure and gutting emergency preparedness.”
“Because RFK Jr.'s CDC turned a blind eye to dangerous foodborne pathogens,” Woodhouse added, “this outbreak spread quickly and states are now scrambling to do their own detective work on what’s causing it. The catastrophic cuts Trump and RFK Jr. made to disease surveillance and research keep coming back to haunt us, yet they want to cut even deeper to make up for their tax breaks for billionaires.”
The Washington Post on Tuesday reported that both federal and state officials have launched an investigation into whether fast food chain Taco Bell “played a role” in the cyclosporiasis outbreak.
According to the Post’s sources, some people who got sick from the disease said they had eaten at Taco Bell shortly becoming symptomatic, although others who were infected by the parasite said they had not eaten at the fast food chain before growing ill.
“Public health officials have said this season’s unusually high number of illnesses, now reported in more than 30 states,” reported the Post, “means more information and more patients to help identify shared foods, shopping habits and restaurant visits among those sickened to help determine the source.”
Expert details 'red herring' hiding real issue behind parasite outbreak
Image via Shuttertstock
Image via Shuttertstock
July 15, 2026
ALTERNET
An expert in infectious diseases this week tossed cold water on the hype and panic surrounding the recent parasitic outbreak, arguing that certain reports about Trump administration cuts have been a "red herring" masking the real issue and making things worse.
As of Tuesday, NBC News reported that around an estimated 7,000 cases of cyclosporiasis had spread across the U.S., according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with a little over 3,300 being from Michigan. A parasitic foodborne illness, cyclosporiasis can cause days or weeks of severe explosive diarrhea, and is most often spread by contaminated fresh produce, including leafy greens, berries and herbs.
Since the outbreak began to emerge, reports have indicated that the sweeping cuts to the national health and disease tracking apparatuses under President Donald Trump have made the situation worse, with many reports honing in on a change made to FoodNet last year. Introduced in 1995, FoodNet is a program run in collaboration between the CDC, the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and state health departments, which aims to track the spread of foodborne diseases. In 2025, under the Trump administration, the tracking of cyclosporiasis was made optional.
In a Wednesday appearance on CNN, Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told host Audie Cornish that the attention put on that FoodNet change was a "red herring," as far as this current outbreak was concerned. He also said that, by his estimation, the outbreak was most likely done, for the time being.
"There's a lot of misinformation going around about this right now," Osterholm said. "Let me tell you, I'm not afraid to be critical of the federal government or even state governments with regard to response. But let's be really clear: the changes that occurred at CDC were eliminating certain diseases from what would be considered community laboratories, the FoodNet system. These are ten sites where they do much more extensive study. The way cases get reported to local and state health departments, and the CDC, through the national notifiable disease system, that has not changed. So this idea that somehow what changes occurred at CDC basically caused this outbreak not to be well investigated, just simply [isn't] true."
He also noted: "I can say right now, I think the outbreak is over. And what I mean by that is the perishable items that came through the food system 4 to 6 weeks ago are gone. It's not there anymore. People are still sick. We're still going to hear about new cases because they're just now getting diagnosed. And as you heard on the lead-in on the social media commentary, we just heard, there are people who are still very sick. The good news is they can be treated. The really also good news is that leafy greens generally are very safe to eat."
While dismissive of the focus put on the FoodNet changes as a contributor to this outbreak, Osterholm was still critical of the CDC's response time, as well as
"I think this outbreak is one that really needs to be reexamined when it's all done, because I think, frankly, we should have had these answers weeks ago and didn't," Osterholm explained. "And I can't attribute that to any one thing other than a lack of overall leadership in responding to this. Yesterday, the CDC put out what was called a 'health alert network' alert, and at that point, that's something that should have been sent out four weeks ago, not at the end of this."
He added later: "The problem we have is that in the first instance, like politics, all of foodborne disease investigations start at the state and local level. And today, 94 percent of all the budgets for all 50 state health departments depend on this federal support to achieve that level of protection. And right now, we're having challenges at the state and local health department where, in fact, these investigations begin. So that is a problem. But it's not what has been made.The problem with this FoodNet system, that's just a red herring."
An expert in infectious diseases this week tossed cold water on the hype and panic surrounding the recent parasitic outbreak, arguing that certain reports about Trump administration cuts have been a "red herring" masking the real issue and making things worse.
As of Tuesday, NBC News reported that around an estimated 7,000 cases of cyclosporiasis had spread across the U.S., according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with a little over 3,300 being from Michigan. A parasitic foodborne illness, cyclosporiasis can cause days or weeks of severe explosive diarrhea, and is most often spread by contaminated fresh produce, including leafy greens, berries and herbs.
Since the outbreak began to emerge, reports have indicated that the sweeping cuts to the national health and disease tracking apparatuses under President Donald Trump have made the situation worse, with many reports honing in on a change made to FoodNet last year. Introduced in 1995, FoodNet is a program run in collaboration between the CDC, the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and state health departments, which aims to track the spread of foodborne diseases. In 2025, under the Trump administration, the tracking of cyclosporiasis was made optional.
In a Wednesday appearance on CNN, Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told host Audie Cornish that the attention put on that FoodNet change was a "red herring," as far as this current outbreak was concerned. He also said that, by his estimation, the outbreak was most likely done, for the time being.
"There's a lot of misinformation going around about this right now," Osterholm said. "Let me tell you, I'm not afraid to be critical of the federal government or even state governments with regard to response. But let's be really clear: the changes that occurred at CDC were eliminating certain diseases from what would be considered community laboratories, the FoodNet system. These are ten sites where they do much more extensive study. The way cases get reported to local and state health departments, and the CDC, through the national notifiable disease system, that has not changed. So this idea that somehow what changes occurred at CDC basically caused this outbreak not to be well investigated, just simply [isn't] true."
He also noted: "I can say right now, I think the outbreak is over. And what I mean by that is the perishable items that came through the food system 4 to 6 weeks ago are gone. It's not there anymore. People are still sick. We're still going to hear about new cases because they're just now getting diagnosed. And as you heard on the lead-in on the social media commentary, we just heard, there are people who are still very sick. The good news is they can be treated. The really also good news is that leafy greens generally are very safe to eat."
While dismissive of the focus put on the FoodNet changes as a contributor to this outbreak, Osterholm was still critical of the CDC's response time, as well as
"I think this outbreak is one that really needs to be reexamined when it's all done, because I think, frankly, we should have had these answers weeks ago and didn't," Osterholm explained. "And I can't attribute that to any one thing other than a lack of overall leadership in responding to this. Yesterday, the CDC put out what was called a 'health alert network' alert, and at that point, that's something that should have been sent out four weeks ago, not at the end of this."
He added later: "The problem we have is that in the first instance, like politics, all of foodborne disease investigations start at the state and local level. And today, 94 percent of all the budgets for all 50 state health departments depend on this federal support to achieve that level of protection. And right now, we're having challenges at the state and local health department where, in fact, these investigations begin. So that is a problem. But it's not what has been made.The problem with this FoodNet system, that's just a red herring."
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