#Cyclospora Spreads Through Human Feces. How Did It Get Into Our Food Supply?
The large number of cases suggests that excrement entered the food system on a “surprising scale.”
By Alice Callahan and Caroline Hopkins Legaspi
July 21, 2026
Excerpt: "Several cyclospora outbreaks linked to raspberries in the late 1990s illustrated one way the parasite can contaminate fresh produce, said Melvin Kramer, an epidemiologist who worked in several state and local public health departments before founding a food safety consulting group.
"In 1996, after collecting detailed food histories from people sickened with cyclospora, investigators traced the illnesses to raspberries from a few farms in Guatemala. There, investigators determined it was likely that the #insecticides and #fungicides sprayed onto the berries had been mixed with #ContaminatedWater. The farms had sourced the water from wells or a nearby river, both of which were vulnerable to #runoff from latrines, especially during the rainy season. Although the water was filtered, the filter removed only debris, not microbes like cyclospora.
"Before this year, the largest outbreak in the United States in recent history occurred in the summer of 2020, sickening 701 people in 14 states and hospitalizing 38. Federal officials linked it to Fresh Express bagged salads containing iceberg lettuce, red cabbage and carrots. They traced at least some of that produce to a farm in South Florida and detected cyclospora in a nearby #WaterCanal that had been used to irrigate crops on the farm. Later, genetic analysis confirmed that the cyclospora found in the canal water matched that found in people sickened in the outbreak, said Frank Yiannas, who was a top official at the #FDA from 2018 to 2023."
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/r7zv4
#WaterIsLife #Cyclosporasis #FoodContamination #BigAg #GrowYourOwnFood #WaterContamination
