Nick Florko doesn’t want to brag or anything, but more than a year ago he wrote an article that has come to seem prescient. Its title: “Now Is Not the Time to Eat Bagged Lettuce.”

Florko, a staff writer at the Atlantic, made that pronouncement long before the multistate outbreak of Cyclospora cayetanensis, a parasite that is associated with explosive diarrhea and has spread across 34 states and counting. Back then, he was focused on leafy greens because they’re the most common cause of foodborne illness, and he worried that the Trump administration was weakening the U.S. food safety system.

We don’t yet know what’s causing this outbreak of cyclosporiasis, but it’s apparent that lettuce is suspect. (Taco Bell specifically is being investigated, or scapegoated, by the White House.) Cyclospora has also been known to hang around in raspberries and cilantro. A key thing is that it’s tough, if not impossible, to wash off. And you can ingest the parasite and not feel the impact of it for weeks.

Luckily, the illness resolves with antibiotics, and it’s not fatal. But symptoms can last for weeks. “It seems to go in waves,” Florko said. “You get really sick, you think you’re fine, you go about your day, you get sick again, and it keeps going. You keep riding that wave until you get it treated.”

On a recent episode of What Next, Mary Harris spoke to Florko about Cyclospora summer: how the parasite spreads, how much faith to place in our country’s public health infrastructure, and whether you can actually eat that lettuce. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mary Harris: So what is this “explosive diarrhea” bug? What is Cyclospora?

Nick Florko: It’s a parasite that is spread by human feces, specifically feces that is left out in the environment to mature and gets infectious. If it touches food, that food gets contaminated, and if you eat the food, you get explosive diarrhea.

How is a pile of poop sitting out for two weeks and then getting on the food? Can you draw me a picture........

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