It is bad. Right now it is very, very bad.
The US is staring down a cyclosporiasis outbreak that refuses to behave. We are talking nearly 7,00 potential cases. Michigan alone is holding more than 3,30 of them as of Tuesday. Officials think tainted lettuce started this mess.
Here is the ugly truth though.
The number is a lie.
Most people with diarrhea don’t bother with doctors. They just suffer. Even if they do go in, labs rarely check for cyclospora by default. Jeanne Marrazzo, head of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, says the real count is probably at least double what the CDC is tracking.
Why?
“It is not in standard panels.”
The parasite causes mild cases too. People just don’t complain. They don’t get counted. They just get sick.
And when the symptoms hit, they do not quit.
Marrazzo puts it plainly. Most diarrhea? One bad episode then relief. This? It just keeps coming. “It really takes people out.”
You think washing your groceries fixes this. You probably don’t.
Taco Bell pulled some ingredients to be safe. Restaurants are panicking. But water on lettuce isn’t a magic bullet.
Norman Beatty at the University of Medicine knows the parasite’s tricks. It digs in. It loves the crevices on raw berries. Lettuce. Herbs.
It laughs at bleach.
Most commercial sanitizers slide right off. The oocysts stick. They stay. You can’t cook the lettuce to kill it. You eat it raw. You ingest the bug.
This wasn’t always a domestic problem.
Bill Marler, the food poisoning lawyer, says these bugs usually came from overseas imports. Not anymore.
The last ten years saw All-American outbreaks. Bagged lettuce from Illinois sickened 700-plus people. It is here now. Stuck here.
Marler calls it pythons in the Everglades.
Remember the invasive snakes taking over Florida wetlands? Cyclospora wants the same thing. But inside us.
One person gets sick. They poop out the parasite. That waste hits water sources. Irrigation systems suck it up. It waters more crops. The cycle repeats.
Marler notes that people blame farm workers for not washing hands. Or worse. He thinks that is lazy thinking.
“The water supply itself is likely contaminated.”
It spreads wide. Fast.
The parasite doesn’t fear chlorine either. Our municipal wastewater systems? They miss it.
Beatty says thousands more are already infected across the country. Our food distribution network acts like a high-speed delivery system for pathogens.
It can be everywhere in days.
Think that can happen to you. Think it can happen in all 50 states.
Because it might.
