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Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) slammed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for ending the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) tracking of parasitic infections including cyclospora.
The decision was made last year and suspended tracking managed by the CDC, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, in addition to 10 state health departments.
Surveillance of cyclospora had previously been mandatory since 1997.
“Now a cyclosporiasis outbreak sweeps the nation. Your foolish and self-indulgent demolition of critical public health programs puts Americans at risk,” Ossoff wrote in a letter sent to Kennedy last Thursday.
Ossoff asked if the Trump administration had any intention to restore the FoodNet tracking program, an explanation on why tracking was terminated and status of epidemiological and food safety investigations to determine the source and scope of the outbreak.
His correspondence comes as over 1,600 Americans report symptoms from cyclosporiasis, including explosive diarrhea.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment regarding the matter.
Dr. Dan Jernigan, former CDC infectious diseases director, said the FoodNet received “chronically low funding” for a while, in an interview with ABC.
“Whether or not the FoodNet issue from last year is significantly impacting it, it’s a little hard to say…,” Jernigan told the outlet regarding the outbreak.
“This is a big cyclospora outbreak, and it requires a lot of people to be involved. The staffing cuts, the 25 percent at CDC, that doesn’t help when you need to have a big response,” he said, citing the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts to the president’s malaria initiative and for neglected tropical diseases.
“Those were dollars that would come from USAID [US Agency for International Development] over to CDC when they were cut, that had a significant impact on the division of parasitic diseases and malaria, and so that means they don’t have the depth, they don’t have the resources, and they don’t have the surge capability that they would have had if the money for malaria and for neglected tropical diseases were there,” he added.
Last week, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said cyclosporiasis “is an FDA issue, not USDA” as residents in multiple states grapple with the outbreak.
Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky have seen the highest number of reported cases.
Cyclospora spreads via contaminated food or water. Leafy greens are primary vehicles for this infection because they grow close to the ground and have textured surfaces that easily trap contaminants.
On Sunday, Trump administration officials linked the outbreak to a lettuce sample collected from Taylor Farms. However, it was later determined to be a false positive.
The FDA clarified later on Monday the false positive does not change the investigation’s basis or the data supporting the Taylor Farms recall.
“FDA’s traceback investigation and outbreak data continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico,” the agency said in a statement.
“FDA will continue to work with federal and state partners to investigate this multistate outbreak and ensure products implicated in this outbreak have been removed from the market.”
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