--- title: "Cyclospora and the 2026 Taylor Farms Outbreak: Questions and Answers" date: 2026-08-13T14:34:00-07:00 author: Bill Marler canonical_url: "https://marlerclark.com/news_events/cyclospora-and-the-2026-taylor-farms-outbreak-questions-and-answers" section: News --- [All News](/news_events) / [Outbreaks](https://marlerclark.com/news_events/outbreaks) / # Cyclospora and the 2026 Taylor Farms Outbreak: Questions and Answers Marler Clark represents people sickened in the 2026 *Cyclospora* outbreak and has filed cases naming Taylor Farms entities as defendants. The answers below are written for people trying to understand what happened to them. They are general information, not legal or medical advice, and reading them does not make anyone a client of this firm. Case counts are current as of August 13, 2026 and change constantly. **The illness** **What is *Cyclospora*?** *Cyclospora cayetanensis* is a microscopic parasite that infects the small intestine. The illness it causes is called cyclosporiasis. People get it by swallowing the parasite in contaminated food or water, almost always fresh produce that was grown or washed where human waste reached the water supply. It is not a bacterium and it is not a virus, and that distinction drives nearly everything else on this page. **What are the symptoms?** Watery diarrhea is the defining symptom, and it is often explosive and unpredictable. Along with it come loss of appetite, weight loss, stomach cramps, bloating, increased gas, nausea and profound fatigue. Some people have a low fever, vomiting, muscle aches or flu-like symptoms at the start. A minority of infected people have no symptoms at all. **How long after eating contaminated food do people get sick?** About a week is typical. The range runs from roughly two days to two weeks or more. That long and variable gap is one reason cyclosporiasis is hard to trace: by the time someone is sick enough to see a doctor, the meal that caused it may be ten days behind them and the food itself is long gone. **How long does it last?** Untreated, cyclosporiasis is notorious for lasting weeks and for relapsing. Symptoms can come and go in cycles, so people feel better for a few days and then start again. Untreated illness lasting a month or more is common, and some of the people this firm represents have been sick far longer than that. Treated promptly, most people improve within days. **Is it contagious? Can I give it to my family?** Not directly, and this is genuinely reassuring news for households. When the parasite leaves the body it is not yet infectious. It needs days to weeks in the environment, outside a person, before it can infect anyone. That is why cyclosporiasis does not spread person to person the way norovirus does, and why an outbreak this size points to a contaminated food source rather than to sick people passing it around. **Who gets the sickest?** Anyone can be badly hurt by this. The people who tend to do worst are those who are already immunocompromised or managing serious chronic illness, and people who become severely dehydrated before they get care. Dehydration is the mechanism that turns this from miserable to dangerous, and it is what puts people in emergency rooms. **Testing and treatment** **Why do so many people never get diagnosed?** Because the test has to be asked for by name. A routine ova and parasite examination will usually miss *Cyclospora* unless the laboratory is specifically told to look for it or the sample is run on a molecular gastrointestinal panel that includes it. A doctor who is not thinking about this outbreak often will not order it. On top of that, most people with a diarrheal illness never see a doctor at all, and many who do are told it is a stomach bug and sent home. The practical consequence is that the published case counts are a fraction of the true number. CDC’s own published estimate of how far short reported cases fall for this parasite is a multiplier of roughly eighty-three to one. That figure is a model rather than a count and it carries a wide interval, but the direction is not in dispute. **What should I ask my doctor for?** If you have had watery diarrhea that will not resolve, tell your doctor when it started, what you ate in the two weeks before, and that there is a national *Cyclospora* outbreak. Ask specifically whether a stool test for *Cyclospora* is appropriate. Several of the people this firm represents were diagnosed only because they recognized the outbreak in the news and asked for the test themselves. That is a medical decision for you and your physician, not one this firm can make. **How is it treated?** The standard treatment is the antibiotic combination trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, sold as Bactrim or Septra. It generally works well and quickly. The complication in this outbreak is that it is a sulfa drug, and people with sulfa allergies cannot take it. The alternative usually prescribed is nitazoxanide, which is less well established for this parasite and which has been in short supply during this outbreak. In one case this firm filed, a plaintiff’s husband drove roughly seven hours round trip to find a pharmacy that had it, and her physicians considered admitting her to intensive care for a desensitization procedure so that she could take the first-line drug instead. **Can I get it again?** Yes. Infection does not appear to produce durable immunity, and reinfection is possible. **How it gets into food** **How does a parasite end up on lettuce?** Through water. *Cyclospora* has only one known host, and that host is people. For the parasite to reach a field, human waste has to reach the water or the ground that touches the crop. The usual suspects are irrigation water drawn from a contaminated source, a failing septic system, a sewer line that overflows after heavy rain, wastewater used on or near fields, and inadequate sanitation for the people working the harvest. This is a sanitation failure before it is a food-handling failure. **Does washing produce remove it?** Not reliably, and this is the single most important thing for consumers to understand. Published washing studies show partial removal at best. In one study, a minute under cold running water removed roughly ninety-four percent of a related parasite from blueberries but only about thirty-nine percent of *Cyclospora* from raspberries. No washing method tested has removed all of it. The parasite sticks to produce surfaces, and it hides in the crevices of leaves and berries. **Does chlorine kill it? What about the triple-wash on bagged salad?** [FDA says in its own voice](https://www.fda.gov/food/foodborne-pathogens/cyclosporiasis-and-fresh-produce) that chlorine and the other common antimicrobial chemical treatments used on produce are not effective against this parasite. The finding goes back to a 1994 investigation in Nepal, where transmission occurred through water that was both chlorinated and filtered. Gaseous chlorine dioxide has been tested and produced no reduction at all. A triple-washed bagged salad has been through a chlorine bath designed for bacteria, and that bath does not solve this problem. **Is there any kill step?** Not for ready-to-eat produce. Heat works, and so does deep freezing, but both destroy lettuce. Ozone and ultraviolet treatment of water show real promise in the laboratory, though most of that work is done on a surrogate parasite because *Cyclospora* cannot be grown in culture and there is no animal model. There is no validated process that makes contaminated leafy greens safe to eat. Prevention has to happen upstream, in the water and in the field, because there is nothing downstream that fixes it. **Why is produce not tested for it?** Mostly because the industry tests for the wrong thing. Water treatment is already required of some growers under the leafy greens marketing agreements, but what those rules require is an antimicrobial validated against generic *E. coli* — a bacterial indicator, scored by a bacterial test. FDA has said plainly that traditional fecal-indicator testing will not identify this parasite. No law requires a farm to test its irrigation water or its produce for *Cyclospora*. It is voluntary. The Guanajuato growing region at the center of this outbreak sits outside the leafy greens agreements entirely. **The 2026 outbreak** **What happened?** Beginning in the late spring of 2026, health departments across the country began reporting an extraordinary rise in cyclosporiasis. FDA’s traceback identified iceberg lettuce grown and processed by Taylor Farms de Mexico in Doctor Mora, Guanajuato, Mexico, as the single common supplier. On July 17, 2026 the company recalled the product. The federal outbreak investigation is organized around exposure at Taco Bell restaurants and, since early August, around the recalled lettuce generally. **How many people are sick?** [FDA’s outbreak advisory](https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigation-15-state-outbreak-cyclospora-illnesses-iceberg-lettuce-july-2026) counts 6,358 illnesses, 278 hospitalizations and two deaths across fifteen states, a figure last updated August 5. [CDC’s national surveillance page](https://www.cdc.gov/cyclosporiasis/php/surveillance/index.html) reports 13,895 laboratory-confirmed cases plus at least 10,455 awaiting further investigation, a combined 24,350, with 740 hospitalizations across 47 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. [Adding up what all fifty state health departments publish](https://www.foodpoisonjournal.com/food-poisoning-information/the-fifty-state-cyclospora-count-is-now-28056-the-real-number-is-near-1155000/)produces a higher figure still: 29,798 as of August 13. Applying CDC’s own underdiagnosis multiplier to the confirmed count suggests the true number of people made sick is somewhere north of a million. **Why are those numbers so different from each other?** They measure different things, and none of them is wrong. The federal outbreak number counts people who have been laboratory-confirmed and interviewed and tied to this specific outbreak. CDC’s national number counts all cyclosporiasis in the country this season, including travel-associated cases. The fifty-state total adds up what each state publishes to its own residents, which includes probable cases the federal count has not yet absorbed. There is also a lag of about six weeks between the day a person gets sick and the day the case reaches CDC. Michigan alone, at 13,909 cases, now reports more than CDC’s entire national laboratory-confirmed total for the whole country. **Which states?** The federal outbreak list names fifteen: Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Cases have been reported in far more states than that. Michigan is by a wide margin the hardest hit, followed by Ohio and Indiana. **Has anyone died?** Two people in Michigan. The state has said both had significant underlying health conditions. Both had onset dates before the recall was announced. **What exactly was recalled?** More than most people realize. FDA’s own recall file for this event, which this firm [pulled and published](https://www.marlerblog.com/case-news/fdas-own-file-says-the-taylor-farms-recall-covered-236192-cases-and-it-was-not-just-iceberg-subway-is-the-biggest-restaurant-on-the-list-and-has-not-said-a-word/), covers 236,192 cases of product across twenty-one separate entries. Roughly seventy percent is iceberg only; the rest includes romaine, carrots and red cabbage. The customers named in the federal record are Marketside, which is Walmart’s brand and the only consumer retail label in the recall, along with Taylor Farms’ own foodservice label, Cross Valley Farms, Sysco, Subway, Markon, YUM, Jack in the Box and Peak. Distribution covered twenty-seven states and Mexico. **Is the recalled lettuce still out there? Should I check my refrigerator?** No. The recall is months behind you now, and everything it covered has long since expired. There is a harder point underneath that question, and it is arithmetic rather than epidemiology. Not one of those 236,192 cases carried a use-by date earlier than July 19, two days after the recall was announced. Lettuce cut before the end of June had already expired and been eaten by the time anyone recalled anything. The front edge of the recall is the recall date minus the shelf life. It is not a finding about when the contamination began, and it could never have reached the lettuce that made the first thousands of people sick. **Has this happened before with the same company?** Yes. In 2013 a large multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak was traced to salad mix from the same Taylor Farms de Mexico facility in Doctor Mora. FDA conducted an environmental assessment there and recommended, among other things, that the firm determine whether *Cyclospora* was a reasonably likely hazard and re-evaluate its wash step. Thirteen years later the same facility is at the center of a far larger outbreak. **Legal questions** **Do I have a case?** The honest answer is that it depends on proof, and the strongest proof is a positive stool test. If you were diagnosed with cyclosporiasis and you ate fresh produce or restaurant food in the weeks before you got sick, it is worth a conversation. If you were sick but never tested, the case is harder and not always impossible, particularly where a local health department investigated the same restaurant or where household members tested positive. There is no charge for asking. **Who is legally responsible?** Under the product liability law of most states, everyone in the chain that sold the contaminated food can be liable, and a person injured by adulterated food generally does not have to prove that any of them was careless. Contaminated food is a defective product. In practice that means the grower and processor, the distributor, and the restaurant or store that served or sold it. **What cases has Marler Clark filed in this outbreak?** Five as of this writing, in four different federal courts, against four different restaurant operators plus Taylor Farms entities: Ayyad and Caruso in the Northern District of Ohio, Hercula in the Eastern District of Michigan, O’Hara in the Western District of Michigan, and Bogard in the Western District of Kentucky. The firm has also been retained by more than forty other people in twenty-six states to investigate how they became infected, and expects to file further cases. Four different operators bought the same lettuce, which is worth remembering whenever this outbreak is described as one restaurant’s problem. **What can be recovered?** Medical bills already incurred and reasonably expected in the future, lost wages and lost earning capacity, out-of-pocket costs, and compensation for the pain, the disruption and the lasting effects of the illness. In some states a spouse has a separate claim for the loss of the injured person’s companionship and services. Where a case involves a death, the categories of recovery are different and are set by each state’s wrongful death statute. **How long do I have to file?** This is the question people wait too long to ask. Every state sets its own deadline, and they vary widely — one year in a few states, two or three in most, longer in some. Claims involving a death, a minor, or a government defendant can run on entirely different and much shorter clocks. Evidence also degrades: restaurants discard records, receipts vanish and memories fade. If you think you may have a claim, find out where you stand now rather than later. **What does it cost to talk to a lawyer about this?** Nothing. Marler Clark handles foodborne illness cases on a contingency fee, which means the firm is paid a percentage of what it recovers and is paid nothing if it recovers nothing. There is no hourly bill and no retainer. **Why does this firm exist?** It grew out of the 1993 Jack in the Box *E. coli* outbreak, which sickened hundreds of children and killed four. Since then Marler Clark has represented more than 10,000 people injured by contaminated food and has recovered over $850 million for them. The firm publishes the [Marler Blog](https://www.marlerblog.com/) and founded [Food Safety News](https://www.foodsafetynews.com/), both free and without a paywall, and it publishes its outbreak reporting regardless of whom the facts help. It also has clients in this outbreak, and says so on every page where the two overlap. **How do I reach you?** Call 1-800-884-9840 or email bmarler@marlerclark.com. The firm is at 180 Olympic Drive S.E., Bainbridge Island, Washington 98110, and works with people nationwide. More at [marlerclark.com](https://www.marlerclark.com/). This page is general information about a public health outbreak and is not legal or medical advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you are sick, see a doctor. Case counts and federal figures change frequently; the [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/cyclosporiasis/about/index.html) and [FDA](https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigation-15-state-outbreak-cyclospora-illnesses-iceberg-lettuce-july-2026) pages linked above carry the current official numbers. ### Other Cyclospora Lawsuits [Cyclospora Outbreak Tied to Taylor Farms Lettuce](https://marlerclark.com/cyclospora-outbreak-in-indiana-kentucky-michigan-ohio-and-west-virginia-tied-to-taco-bell-and-taylor-farms) [Fresh Express Bagged Lettuce Linked to Cyclospora Outbreak](https://marlerclark.com/bagged-lettuce-sold-by-aldi-hy-vee-and-jewel-osco-grocery-stores-recalled-after-cyclospora-outbreak) [Cyclospora Tainted Cilantro Sickens 495 in United Sates](https://marlerclark.com/cyclospora-tainted-cilantro-sickens-457-in-united-sates) [Nationwide Cyclospora Outbreak: Iowa & Nebraska Cases Linked to Bagged Salad, 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The team at Marler Clark is here to answer all your questions. Find out if you’re eligible for a lawsuit, what questions to ask your doctor, and more. [ Get a free consultation ](https://marlerclark.com/contact) ##### Related Resources ###### [Cyclospora Food Poisoning](https://marlerclark.com/foodborne-illnesses/cyclospora/what-is-cyclospora) What is Cyclospora cayetanensis? Cyclospora cayetanensis is a unicellular, microscopic parasite that can cause food- or water-related gastrointestinal illness. The oocyst form of the parasite is chlorine-resistant and must sporulate... ###### [Epidemiology of Cyclospora](https://marlerclark.com/foodborne-illnesses/cyclospora/epidemiology-of-cyclospora) Cyclosporiasis is an intestinal illness caused by the protozoan parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis, which is transmissible by ingestion of food or water contaminated with sporulated oocysts. Most cases of cyclosporiasis occur... ###### [Cyclospora’s Mode of Infection](https://marlerclark.com/foodborne-illnesses/cyclospora/cyclosporas-mode-of-infection) The modes of transmission of C. cayetanensis are still not completely understood. Direct person-to-person transmission is unlikely because the oocysts are not infectious when initially shed (unlike Cryptosporidium, another foodborne... ###### [Symptoms of Cyclospora Infection](https://marlerclark.com/foodborne-illnesses/cyclospora/symptoms-of-cyclospora-infection) What are the typical symptoms of Cyclospora infection? Cyclospora infects the small intestine (bowel) and usually causes watery diarrhea, bloating, increased gas, stomach cramps, flatulence, loss of appetite, nausea, low-grade... ###### [How is Cyclospora Diagnosed?](https://marlerclark.com/foodborne-illnesses/cyclospora/how-is-cyclospora-diagnosed) Cyclosporiasis is usually diagnosed symptomatically in clinical settings, including the presence of watery diarrhea, abdominal cramping, and bloating. In untreated, immunocompetent people, the diarrhea can last from days to weeks... ##### Outbreak Database #### Looking for a comprehensive list of outbreaks? The team at Marler Clark is here to answer all your questions. Find out if you’re eligible for a lawsuit, what questions to ask your doctor, and more. [ View Outbreak Database ](https://outbreakdatabase.com)