Short Stuff: Cyclospora

The US has an unusual number of outbreaks of food-borne illness going on in the summer of 2026, and the star of the show is cyclospora. How does this parasite make people sick, where does it come from? You may not want to know. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:13Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. So this is the short stuff. Let's go.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  That's right. Today, we're talking about the recent cyclosporiasis outbreak that everyone heard about, notably with tainted lettuce usually is what you were hearing on the news and Taco Bell was in the news because it turns out that the supplier that they used was, seems to have been ground zero for this outbreak. But we're going to explain what cyclospora is all about.

• 1:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's this outbreak as of August 13th, which was the latest data we could find. It's August 20th now, so this is old. Okay. It's 28,056 people have been sickened with cyclospor- I'm going with cyclosporiasis. It sounded like you gave the British pronunciation.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Sporiasis, yes.

• 2:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it certainly sounded like you had tea in your hand.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:13Josh Clark?

  So 28,000 plus people have been sickened. Two people have died and just a month before it was at 9,481 cases. And you're like, wow, that's a lot of people. And it is, this is actually the third biggest foodborne outbreak in U. S. history. From what anyone could tell, it's the biggest cyclospora outbreak in human history. And even with those eye popping stats associated with it, that 28,000 case number is probably just a fraction of the actual number of cases of people who have gotten sickened with cyclosporiasis.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I think there are only 38 states reporting.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  You know, as far as reporting goes, it's like people who went to the hospital and a lot of people just like wrote it out, I'm sure. And then even at the hospital, you have to have a special test to see if it's actually that. And not all the hospitals probably did that test, so they probably just treated people for dehydration and diarrhea. So it's a much bigger number than that. And let's talk about what this thing is because it is a, not a plant, it's not a fungus or an animal, it's not a bacteria or a virus. It is a protozoan and it's a parasite and the human is the host.

• 3:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it's not brand new, but the reason we can pretty confidently say that in all of human history, this is the biggest outbreak of cyclosporiasis is because the first case that anyone's ever documented was in like 1978 in Papua, New Guinea. And it's even newer here in the United States. The first outbreak was in 1995, right?

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, in Chicago, only 23 cases. Then there was one in Florida the next year, about 45 cases. Those were raspberries from Guatemala. And every summer, basically, there was, there's a little something, but nothing like we saw this year. They, you know, this stuff can live, this protozoan can live in rivers, it lives in water, drinking water, rivers, lakes, swimming pools. And it likes to hide in like berries and leafy vegetables because there's lots of little crevices and nooks and crannies where it won't get washed out, even if you're like rinsing your stuff, also on knives and utensils, and also from unwashed hands.

• 4:34Josh Clark?

  Gross.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 4:36Josh Clark?

  Like just let's be clear, it passes through human sewage. That's, that's its mode of transportation, right?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 4:45Josh Clark?

  So that means that somebody had human poop on their knife or their hands, if that's where you got it.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we should talk about the life cycle because it begins when it enters your mouth. It is in what's earliest stage, it's an infectious oocyst. Did you know how that's, that's what it was pronounced?

• 5:09Josh Clark?

  That's the British way of pronouncing it. I'm going with oocyst.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  It is oocyst, I actually looked that up.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  And it is an egg that basically protects it from the outside world until it gets into the, the human system where it latches onto your gut and starts a 14-stage life cycle, which takes two days to two weeks to incubate before it becomes an infection.

• 5:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and the reason it takes so long is because that oocyst, is that what you said?

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, with emphasis on the first o.

• 5:43Josh Clark?

  Oocyst.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Or oocyst, sorry.

• 5:45Josh Clark?

  Oocyst.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:46Josh Clark?

  I like ooh, ooh, cyst. It's very tough. It's like a tough container, like you said, that protects the actual infectious part. And it has to break down and it's evolved to break down in the human gut, thanks to your digestive juices and your bile and the temperature of your body inside your gut. All those things come together and break that oocyst down. And now, all of a sudden, four sausage shaped sporulits

• 6:14Speaker 02

  Bleh.

• 6:16Josh Clark?

  get dumped out into your gut and start going to work on essentially making it really hard for your gut to absorb water. And because your body's trying to poop this stuff out, you have water butt like you have never had it before.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  That's right. And every time you do poop, you pass along up to 10,000 oocyst per cubic centimeter of feces. That's a lot.

• 6:43Josh Clark?

  Ooey gooey feces, it says.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Should we take a break?

• 6:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back.

• 7:05Josh Clark?

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• 9:29Speaker 02

  All right, so we're back. You said the main symptom is really, really bad diarrhea, which obviously was going to lead to bad dehydration, like dangerous dehydration, and electrolyte imbalances, potential kidney damage risk, maybe hospitalization, as we've seen, up to 10% body weight, weight loss.

• 9:51Josh Clark?

  That's nuts.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  That's a lot, you know, depending on who you are, but that's a lot no matter what, because it's 10% of whoever you are, you know?

• 9:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, what's interesting is there's not the inflammation or fever that's usually associated with a stomach bug. It's, it's just a lot of pooping and the risk of really bad dehydration and then all the stuff that comes with that, right?

• 10:12Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 10:13Josh Clark?

  So, once you poop that stuff out, it makes it back into the water supply, it gets back into your food stuff, as we'll talk about in a second, and then the cycle begins again. And that's probably what happened. The water supply was used on food crops where really, if you step back and think about it for even a second, it shouldn't be. But let's, let's talk about, Chuck, why this US outbreak in 2026 is the biggest one, the biggest cyclosporosis outbreak in human history.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, one is climate change, you know, with the rising temperatures across the globe, these, you know, I don't think we mentioned that this thing used to be found only in the tropics.

• 10:54Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  But now these pathogens can be found elsewhere because of rising temps. The second one, and, you know, we're not getting political, but this is just a stone cold fact, this presidential administration has cut funding for food safety programs, including two key ones that might have stopped this, the Food Emergency Response Network, they grant states funding to test for food pathogens like this, and FoodNet, which tracks outbreak-causing pathogens, and FoodNet specifically, literally because of a lack of funding, stopped tracking six of the eight pathogens that it used to always track, and cyclospora is one of those.

• 11:34Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  So, you know, that's just the deal.

• 11:38Josh Clark?

  Plus, the federal agencies that are responsible for basically taking the lead and guiding healthcare providers and public health officials and all that stuff throughout the country just sat on their, their hands for months, as a matter of fact. It was about two full months before the CDC stepped forward with guidelines and essentially basically really started talking about this publicly. In the meantime, this outbreak was bad enough that somebody had to do something, so Michigan ended up stepping forward and filling the role that the CDC was just dropping the ball on. They ended up issuing guidelines and stuff that obviously weren't, you know, regulations

• 12:22Josh Clark?

  or anything, but that other healthcare providers in other states were like, okay, good, now I know what to do, thanks to the state of Michigan, not the federal government, which is supposed to do. And if you put all that together, you're like, wow, this happened really fast. And to me, it gives a picture of like, the United States built a really impressive foodborne illness surveillance network that, that was fragile, apparently, but that really worked. Because if you just pull that stuff away, and then this is the stuff that happens, I think there's 20 foodborne outbreaks right now going on in the United States.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:00Josh Clark?

  It's, it's, in a way, it's really impressive how effective it was before.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, boy, hats off to you, Michiganders, for taking the lead on that. One of the other big reasons is big agriculture. When it's, you know, something like that has been consolidated so much, and industry has, that means that, you know, Americans are getting their, their crops from just, you know, the same places, basically. So if something like this happens, like happened at Taylor Farms, this was Taylor Farms de Mexico, which was the agricultural site, even though it's a California-based company, all of a sudden, this stuff's going out all over the country. There's also a, Taylor Farms is also being identified as a source of the other outbreaks,

• 13:48Speaker 02

  a couple of them, the salmonella outbreak, at least from jalapenos, I think?

• 13:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  And for those who don't speak Spanish, Taylor Farms de Mexico means Taylor Farms of Mexico.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  So, and it's not just Mexico or Guatemala where you're going to find tainted produce. Something I was kind of alluding to earlier is that the cyclospora find its way, finds its way to your food crops through human sewage, and that can actually happen in the United States because there are, let me find it, more than half, I think 27 states allow for treated sewage water to be used to irrigate food crops. I did not know that.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  I didn't either. Nine states don't have any policy, four have guidelines, and 14 states allow it for crops, but not food crops.

• 14:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  And, you know, yeah, that's, that's where it's coming from.

• 14:48Josh Clark?

  Yes, so they, and we did say treated sewage waste.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 14:55Josh Clark?

  Right, so it's not like they're just spraying like feces all over your lettuce. But essentially, on a microscopic level, they often are, because a lot of sewage treatment plants aren't set up to handle cyclospora. Because again, this is not your average bacteria or virus, this is its own thing. So the oocites, cysts can make it through onto your, your lettuce, or whatever. And then also, sometimes those bacteria and the viruses that the sewage treatment plant is set up to take care of, make it through anyway. So, this is what I was saying, it seems pretty smart to just stop using treated sewage on food crops.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and maybe fund the agencies that are responsible for keeping track of this stuff would be awesome.

• 15:43Josh Clark?

  For sure, yeah. So, if you feel at all like you should go to the hospital if you have cyclosporosis right now, or if you have really bad water, but for any reason, just go, like, don't risk it, whatever. But if you don't want to get cyclosporosis, there are some steps you can take. One of them is that, at the very least, wash off all of your stuff, because that can help, but cyclosporosis can still hide, right, Chuck?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we talked in Act One about the little nooks and crannies, and it's, you know, hard to get to sometimes. The only thing to like, kill it is to cook it to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, but you're not cooking your lettuce for your taco.

• 16:21Josh Clark?

  No, that's great. That's like the mom in Better Off Dead who boiled the bacon.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a really silly part of that movie, that whole mom scene.

• 16:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Stuff that's, you know, like, stuff that has a nice wrapper around it, like a banana or an avocado, you're doing okay. And, you know, do plenty of hand washing, obviously, as well.

• 16:41Josh Clark?

  For sure. And if you are on the verge, or have already started, an email telling us how you used to like us before we became political, just stop, don't bother. Chore stuff's out.

• 16:52Speaker 03

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