The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that it continues to believe the nationwide cyclospora outbreak tied to severe diarrhea can be traced back to Taylor Farms’ operations in Mexico — while firmly denying that it apologized to the company.
The clarification followed a claim from Taylor Farms, a major U.S. supplier of packaged greens and fresh produce, that the FDA had acknowledged an error after a test for the cyclospora parasite came back falsely positive.
Federal health officials, however, disputed that characterization.
“The recent false positive results do not change the basis for FDA’s ongoing outbreak investigation,” the agency said during a Monday press briefing.
Regulators said the broader evidence gathered so far still indicates the Mexican produce supplier remains the leading suspected source of the dangerous foodborne illness outbreak.
Here’s the latest on the ‘explosive’ cyclosporiasis outbreak:
The FDA said it notified Taylor Farms about the false positive result, but stressed that the company is still recalling lettuce that may have been contaminated and distributed to U.S. grocery stores as well as Taco Bell locations.
Cyclospora is a parasite rather than a bacterium, which makes it significantly harder for laboratories to identify with certainty.
Even so, the FDA maintained that the other tools being used in the investigation remain reliable and continue to support its findings.
