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The Explosive Failures Fueling the Cyclospora Outbreak

We’re getting a stark reminder of what happens when you gut a public-health system.

Should you worry about cyclospora? Emily Oster doesn’t think so. Writing in The New York Times in July, Oster, the economist and self-appointed health guru, told readers that the nationwide spread of the cyclospora parasite, which causes watery, sometimes “explosive” diarrhea, was no grave concern. After all, she noted, the infection is treatable, rarely causes serious injury or death, and is not transmissible from person to person.

All of this is true enough—and if, like Oster, you view health as a private family matter, you might draw comfort from her words. But if you think that the Trump administration’s devastating ongoing attack on public health in America is important, the cyclospora outbreak, which investigators think was caused by tainted produce, should matter very much to you.

First, this is the largest outbreak of the protozoal disease since 2019, with more than 11,500 cases confirmed or under investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of late July. This doesn’t come anywhere near the prevalence of other diarrheal diseases like norovirus. But the point isn’t that cyclospora is not as bad as norovirus; it’s that our food supply shouldn’t be making us sick.

Yet the federal agencies responsible for monitoring foodborne diseases, like the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC, have been decimated by staffing cuts in Trump’s second term. The FDA was already having difficulties in inspecting foreign food facilities before Trump 2.0; now, as Brian Ronholm of Consumer Reports told the Times, these cuts have “really put [the FDA]........

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