CDC links Taco Bell lettuce to multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak

A single supplier of shredded iceberg lettuce from Mexico has become the center of a public health reckoning, as federal investigators traced a record-breaking cyclospora outbreak — now surpassing 4,700 cases across more than thirty states — back to Taco Bell restaurants in five Midwestern states. The parasite, which spreads through feces-contaminated water and thrives in warm seasons, is a quiet but growing presence in the American food system, its rise driven by both climate change and the sharper eyes of modern diagnostics. In the way that a single thread pulled can unravel a much larger fa