“The outbreak and subsequent cover-up of its origins have eroded public trust in the food supply and created an unacceptable risk to public health.”
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), today demanded answers from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Taylor Farms about the record-breaking cyclosporiasis outbreak and the backroom dealing by the Trump Administration that may have delayed the government’s response to this ongoing public health crisis.
In letters sent today to FDA Acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas and Taylor Farms Chief Executive Officer Bruce Taylor, Blumenthal sought records and information about the ongoing investigation into the outbreak and the influence of Taylor Farms on staffing and program cuts at the agency.
“Recent reporting indicates that Taylor Farms—which last year donated $1 million to a political action committee supporting President Trump—contacted the White House seeking to delay the recall of its tainted produce, and that the White House brought officials from the FDA onto the call. According to former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, there is no precedent for such intervention from the White House in the agency’s management of food safety recalls,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Diamantas.
Blumenthal continued, “This was not the first time that Taylor Farms has sought to use political connections to influence regulation of the industry in which it operates: Since the beginning of the second Trump Administration, the company has spent $810,000 on lobbying regarding ‘regulation of food safety.’”
Blumental raised concerns regarding the Administration’s lacking response and shifting information about the outbreak: “According to FDA, the current cyclosporiasis outbreak started on May 17, 2026, but the agency did not issue a public notice about it until July 17, 2026, when it announced that Taylor Farms would voluntarily remove all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico. On July 19, 2026, FDA provided an update claiming the sample collected from Taylor Farms was a false positive. When Taylor Farms then announced that the agency had ‘apologized’ for linking its produce to the outbreak, FDA quickly denied that it had done any such thing. Shortly thereafter, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of the Department of Health and Human Services said the outbreak was ‘under control’ even as it continued to infect thousands of people and expand into additional states.”
Pointing to the Trump Administration’s cuts to federal food safety programs, including those designed to actively monitor foodborne outbreaks of cyclospora, Blumenthal concluded, “The severity of the outbreak indicates that, thanks to Trump Administration policies, FDA is simply unprepared to handle an outbreak of foodborne illness at this scale.”
The full text of Blumenthal’s letter to Diamantas is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026-07-30-Letter-from-Sen-Blumenthal-to-Acting-Commissioner-Diamantas.pdf. The full text of Blumenthal’s letter Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor is available here: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026-07-30-Letter-from-Sen-Blumenthal-to-Taylor-Farms-2.pdf.