Taco Bell halts lettuce supply nationwide as FDA probes 1,600+ cyclosporiasis cases

A parasitic illness has quietly moved through five American states this summer, carried not by water or wilderness but by a fast-food staple — shredded lettuce served across thousands of Taco Bell locations. More than 1,600 people have been confirmed sick with cyclosporiasis, a gastrointestinal infection traced by federal investigators to a single iceberg lettuce supplier in Mexico, with the true toll likely higher still. The episode is a reminder that the modern food supply chain — vast, efficient, and largely invisible to those it feeds — can transmit vulnerability at the same scale it deliv