Ex-FDA Gottlieb: Cyclospora outbreak not under control, especially in Mexico

 Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said Sunday the agency does not yet have the outbreak of cyclosporiasis under control. 

“I don’t think it’s under control yet, per se. I think that they’ve done a good job, FDA has, isolating this to central Mexico and some specific farms as well,” Gottlieb told CBS News’s Margaret Brennan during an appearance on “Face the Nation.”

He later added, “I don’t think this is fully under control yet because we don’t know for sure that that’s the only growing region where this is coming from. But it does seem to be the case at this point.”

Officials from the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and multiple states have linked iceberg lettuce from central Mexico to cyclospora outbreaks causing at least 1,947 cases in nine states. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Nearly 100 people have been hospitalized due to cyclospora, while no one has died from the parasite, according to the CDC. Symptoms of the illness include watery diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss, cramping and bloating. 

The FDA said the infections are likely tied to iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms and grown in central Mexico. The agency made that determination via epidemiological evidence, including interviews, as no produce has tested positive for cyclospora as of Friday.

In a statement, Taylor Farms said Friday it removed “all potentially implicated product from the marketplace” and “issued an even broader recall of all iceberg lettuce sourced from the region” once federal officials raised questions about the source of the outbreak.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said earlier this week his department — which oversees the FDA and CDC — had the outbreak “under control.”

“We have done extensive forensics, epidemiological forensics, and we’ve identified the source of the outbreak,” Kennedy added.

But Gottlieb said the FDA has had “challenges with communications” during the outbreak. Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas has led the agency since Marty Makary stepped down in May.

“I think FDA has done a good job isolating this, and they were fast to do this,” Gottlieb told Brennan. “This is a hard pathogen to detect. There’s no really good test for it, so you can’t test for it in food. But there hasn’t been as much communication from the agency as you might expect.”

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5991428-gottlieb-fda-cyclospaoriasis-outbreak/