Why Cyclospora Persists in Produce Despite Food Safety Efforts

Each summer, as fields warm and irrigation runs, a microscopic parasite called Cyclospora finds its way from human waste into the vegetables that feed us — a cycle that persists not from ignorance, but from the irreducible gap between what food safety science understands and what human infrastructure can reliably prevent. Utah's 48 cases since May 2026 are not an anomaly but a seasonal reckoning, a reminder that the journey from field to table passes through systems — sewage lines, water sources, portable toilets, harvest bins — that remain imperfectly controlled. The deeper challenge is not a