How cyclospora got going

And how outbreaks of food contamination will keep going, until corporations are forced to change their ways.

To maximize returns, these companies aggregate and process harvests from multiple farms in a few central production and distribution hubs, before shipping across the U.S. This process, where contaminated produce from potentially just one field was mixed into thousands of fresh-cut salad bags, is likely how the outbreak has affected so many people, while the scale of the relatively uncompetitive distribution market resulted in it reaching so many states. In this cyclospora outbreak, the scale and concentration of the contemporary produce market has become a public health hazard.

In the United States, money translates to political power, and the produce industry has used that to kill food safety regulation and monitoring across administrations. The Food Traceability Rule passed by Congress and scheduled to be implemented at the start of this year would have enabled a much quicker and surgical public health response but was delayed to 2028 following coordinated industry lobbying by the Global Cold Chain Alliance, the Food Industry Association, and the National Grocers Association. In 2024, regulations requiring the testing of irrigation water for pathogens like cyclospora were replaced by what is essentially an honor system. During the Obama administration, fierce lobbying by the United Fresh Produce Association (now the International Fresh Produce Association) killed the Microbiological Data Program. This was a cheap and effective program run by the USDA from 2001 to 2012 for about $5 million a year, which pulled and tested samples of high-risk produce. In its last two years alone, this trip-wire triggered 23 product recalls.

In sum, the way that this outbreak has spread through a concentrated production and distribution network that has steadily eroded federal safeguards indicates a systemic problem of a few larger corporations controlling market governance itself, with the ability to cut costs and get rich at peoples’ expense. - IATP