Over the weekend, senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) excoriated health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr in a letter over his “calamitous” response to the summer’s cyclosporiasis outbreak.
New cases of explosive diarrhea, triggered by a microscopic parasite that’s been found to infest pre-packaged lettuce, have only recently started slowing down — despite Kennedy Jr declaring that the situation was purportedly “under control” almost exactly a month ago. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest numbers, there are north of 24,000 lab-confirmed and suspected cases of cyclosporiasis spanning 47 US states.
As a result, Americans are ditching lettuce at record rates, forcing producers to and retailers into a crisis. Prices for the leafy vegetables plummeted by over 16 percent in July compared to June, as CNBC reports — the single largest one-month decline ever recorded, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“It’s very likely due to the cyclospora outbreak and consumers just not wanting to buy lettuce right now,” University of Central Arkansas associate economics professor Jeremy Horpedahl told the channel.
The trend intersects with another notable Donald Trump plotline: lettuce prices had surged to all-time highs prior to the outbreak this summer, almost certainly as a result of the Iran war raising fertilizer prices and the White House’s immigration crackdown increasing labor costs for US farms.
It’s not just lettuce in stores. Even restaurant chains that were affiliated with Taylor Farms, a company found to be at the epicenter of the outbreak, saw a significant drop in traffic, according to the CNBC. The CDC specifically to Taco Bell as a source of the parasite — one of Taylor Farms’ corporate customers — last month, causing visits to plunge by 31 percent.
However, a more recent report by the Food and Drug Administration found that only 2.5 percent of Taylor Farms’ recalled lettuce actually went to Taco Bell restaurants. In comparison, Subway received 3.4 percent, despite not being singled out by the Trump administration.
The White House’s chaotic response to the growing outbreak highlights glaring gaps in its ability to consistently provide coherent public health data, following major layoffs and gutted federal health programs.
Worse yet, Taylor Farms has made a huge donation to a Trump-affiliated political action group, indicating a more-than-comfortable relationship. Lobbyists for the company also engaged with the White House during the early days of the outbreak, pleading for more time and proof, as the Wall Street Journal reported last month.
Democratic lawmakers are not impressed as the chaos unfolds.
“I write regarding the administration’s calamitous response to the biggest outbreak of cyclosporiasis in US history, and the extent to which the outbreak and botched response may be the result of incompetence and corruption,” Warren wrote in her letter addressed to Kennedy Jr.
“As Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), you are responsible for overseeing the federal government’s response to this outbreak,” she added. “Yet, the administration’s handling of this crisis has been marred by missteps that raise serious questions about its decision-making.”
Warren also argued that Taco Bell “provided earlier and seemingly clearer guidance to consumers than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), CDC, and other federal food safety agencies.”
More on the outbreak: Organisms Living Inside Psychopaths Could Be Driving Bad Behavior, Scientists Claim
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