RFK Jr. Says Cyclospora Outbreak Is ‘Under Control’ Lol, Sure Dog
An outbreak of cyclospora has infected over 1,000 people in at least five states over the last couple of months. Despite the FDA walking back its original finding of the outbreak’s source, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the outbreak is “under control” during a news conference on Tuesday.
You know, for some reason, I just don’t believe him.
NBC News reports that the Tuesday conference marked the first time Kennedy has spoken publicly about the outbreak. “We do have the outbreak under control,” Kennedy told reporters. “We have an extensive forensics, epidemiological forensics, and we’ve identified the source of the outbreak. We and the companies that are involved have implemented a recall.”
FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas was more evasive in his description of the outbreak, telling Fox News on Tuesday that the data “strongly supports” Taylor Farms as the responsible party.
If you’re unaware, cyclospora is a parasite that causes cyclosporiasis. It’s an infection that causes nausea, fatigue, weight loss, and aggressive diarrhea.
It’s hard to take what the FDA is saying at face value considering how regularly the Trump administration lies and the moves made at the CDC and FDA under Kennedy’s leadership. Last week, the FDA announced that lettuce provided by Taylor Farms tested positive for cyclospora. Yet only a few days later (after a White House meeting with Taylor Farms executives no less), the FDA announced the test was a false positive.
It also doesn’t help that in its original statement, the FDA tried to place the blame on Taco Bell as opposed to Taylor Farms, which supplied them with the lettuce.
ABC News reports that several lawmakers have been critical of Kennedy’s handling of the FDA. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) wrote a letter to Kennedy in which he accused him of “undermining food safety” with the changes made at the FDA. Over the last year, the CDC and FDA were hit with widespread layoffs, and several monitoring programs were greatly reduced. Ossoff focused on the changes Kennedy made to the CDC’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, known as FoodNet.
Previously, FoodNet required states to report the Cyclospora parasite. As a result of changes Kennedy made to the program last year, states are only required to report Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.
“Your foolish and self-indulgent demolition of critical public health programs puts Americans at risk,” Ossoff wrote. “The Trump Administration is actively undermining food safety.”
Kennedy defended the cuts that were made to FoodNet and pushed back against Ossoff’s criticisms on Tuesday.
“Those criticisms are invalid. We’ve had no cuts in our surveillance program,” Kennedy said. “We did cuts in the FoodNet program, but they were for redundant surveillance, and all the states will tell you that we’re still doing forensics. We’re still doing surveillance in all the states.”
At no point did Kennedy or DOGE consider that maybe those redundancies were in place for a reason. It’s just kinda funny how Kennedy made these changes, and now we have the largest cyclospora outbreak ever, as well as the largest outbreak of New World Screwworm in decades.
Maybe if Kennedy spent more time listening to scientists and doing the boring parts of his job, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Instead, we gotta listen to that sentient leather wallet rail against seed oils and vaccines.
I’m tired of this, grandpa.
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