CIDRAP Op-Ed: The Cyclospora outbreak was, and still is, a communications failure

This is the largest documented Cyclospora outbreak in US history, and the coverage has that part right. What has reached the public is a scary number that keeps going up. It misses the fact that, while cyclosporiasis—which is what a Cyclospora infection is called—has now been reported in 41 states, the outbreak is only in nine. The numbers being reported measure different things. The CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have included 1,947 confirmed cases in the nine-state Taco Bell outbreak, which epidemiologic and trace-back evidence links to iceberg lettuce, while the CDC separately reports more than 4,000 confirmed domestically acquired cases nationally since May.