According to the CDC, there are nine states where there is an outbreak
A customer shops for cilantro at a Walmart Supercenter in Austin, Texas, on July 23, 2026.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
The nation’s largest multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis linked to shredded iceberg lettuce has spread to nine states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The four newly connected states – Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania – are joined by Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and hard-hit Michigan. Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that typically infects people through contaminated food or water and causes cyclosporiasis, a gastrointestinal disease that can cause symptoms such as severe diarrhea. Patients may require hospitalization, but no deaths related to the parasite have been recorded this year.
The outbreak is already the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak reported in the United States this year, with thousands of cases across the country. This is well above the approximately 200 to 1,000 cases that are normally reported annually.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is investigating a separate cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to one or more unidentified foods. The U.S. is trying to investigate the sources of the parasite and contain its spread amid confusion over the response to the outbreak and staff cuts that some experts say have made containing the parasite difficult.
In what appeared to be his first public comments on the outbreak, President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. would impose “a big tariff” on Mexico “because of the lettuce.” It’s unclear whether he was serious.
U.S. health and food regulators have focused on shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms, a privately held company based in California, from its plant in central Mexico.
Mexican health authorities said Thursday that lettuce and water samples from the plant tested negative for Cyclospora. However, this finding does not refute the Food and Drug Administration’s previous identification of Taylor Farms de Mexico as the likely source of the outbreak.
The first cases began showing symptoms in mid-May. Furthermore, the long incubation period of an infection means that the responsible crop would have been distributed weeks ago.
Last week, the FDA said the food giant shipped the shredded iceberg lettuce to Taco Bell restaurants where people ate before they got sick. Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall of all iceberg lettuce from its plant in Guanajuato, Mexico, and Taco Bell removed the affected lettuce from its restaurants.
The CDC has so far counted 1,947 people infected with Cyclospora who also reported eating at Taco Bell across the nine states. The iceberg lettuce-related illnesses began June 22 and continued through July 20, the CDC said. Federal numbers have lagged behind state numbers, so some of the states affected by the outbreak have reported much higher infection numbers.
But Taylor Farms has drawn criticism for its response to the outbreak. Some health experts criticized the recall notice, which included abbreviations and did not make it easy for consumers to identify whether they had purchased or eaten a compromised product.
After the FDA reported false positive results in lettuce samples from Taylor Farms on Sunday, the company released a statement saying the health agency had apologized. The FDA later clarified that it had not apologized to Taylor Farms, and the company deleted the statement on X, although it is still available on its website. The agency also said it continues to believe the company’s iceberg lettuce is the likely cause of the outbreak.
Taylor Farms supplies lettuce and other products to major retailers such as Walmart, Target and Whole Foods, as well as restaurant chains such as Taco Bell.
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