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House Democrats To Investigate Taylor Farms' Potential Role In Cyclosporiasis Outbreak

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Taylor Farms on Monday asking the company to provide copies of all its correspondence with the Trump administration regarding the cyclosporiasis outbreak.

Rep. Robert Garcia (Calif.), the committee's ranking Democrat, said it appeared as though the lettuce producer "may have attempted to influence" the Food and Drug Administration's investigation into its potential role in the spread of the intestinal illness. There have been roughly 2,000 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis in recent weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and thousands more suspected cases in dozens of states.

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The CDC has said that traceback data shows iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms' supply chain in Central Mexico was contaminated with cyclospora, the parasite that can lead to explosive diarrhea. The company initiated a recall on lettuce earlier this month.

But the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Taylor Farms had reached out to the White House in an effort to delay an announcement of its recall, a move one former FDA chief has called "not standard." Taylor Farms claimed the FDA did not have solid evidence tying the outbreak to its lettuce and wanted to hold off on making the recall public.

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Packages of Taylor Farms salad greens are displayed at a Safeway store on July 16 in Kings Beach, California. Federal health officials are investigating whether shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by California-based Taylor Farms was the source of a nationwide cyclospora outbreak that has sickened more than 1,600 people in 34 states, though no definitive link has been confirmed.

In their letter, Democrats said they were troubled by the company's reported effort to intervene. They noted that Taylor Farms donated $1 million to MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting President Donald Trump.

"This timeline of events raises concerns that your company may have attempted to leverage political donations and connections inside the Trump Administration to influence the scope, scale, and findings of FDA's investigation," they wrote.

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Taylor Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Democrats' investigation Monday.

The company said in a statement Friday that it "immediately removed all potentially implicated product" from the market as soon as "questions were raised" about its potential role in the cyclosporiasis outbreak. It has also "voluntarily suspended" its sourcing of lettuce from Central Mexico for now.

"We are confident in our food and food safety systems and will continue to be transparent as more information becomes available," the company said.

The CDC says the recalled lettuce was distributed in more than two dozen states between June 29 and July 16. The agency recommends that anyone with the recalled lettuce "should discard it immediately and not consume it." The FDA provides a full list of the products here.