WEBVTT - Who Is Behind America's Cyclospora Summer? 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:04.160 Zone media. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:15.880 When I was younger, I had a variety of jobs 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:18.680 for a pretty young age. I'd help out with lambing. 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:20.800 A lot of people around us had a lot more 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:23.520 sheep than we did, so pretty often in springtime, when 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:25.159 I wasn't at school, I'd be dropped off at a 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.800 barn in the morning with overalls, boots and a pack lunch. 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.400 After school, I worked in shipping for a tomato grow 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.360 It sucked and I hated it. If I'm going to 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.319 work that hard, I want to be outside all day. 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:39.360 That was the only time in my life I've ever 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.600 had to interface with the Microsoft exelf. It defeated me. 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.640 I've done all sorts of other things too, shot pigeons, 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.120 torn about, flood damaged houses, short ordered cooked, walked through 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:52.959 the woods with a bunch of other guys to make 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.920 some birds fly towards some rich people with guns, mucked 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.520 our horses, even delivered frozen turkeys on a bicycle once. 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.640 I've done some horror stuff too. Once I had to 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.319 wear a hazmat suit to demolish your walk in freezer 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.560 that have been without power for a month. It was 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:09.880 one of the worst things I've ever smelled. It smelled 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.640 worse than death. I've never seen so many grown adults 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.800 vomiting in one place at one time. Hello, and welcome 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.319 to my podcast. I promise that would be one of 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:22.800 the only mentions of feted smells today. I'm doctor James 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.400 Stout and this is Natural Causes, a podcast about going outside. 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:29.640 Today we're talking about food, the people who make it, 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.479 and the giant corporations who ship bit across the western 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:39.360 hemisphere and put it inside a tortilla. Let's go so. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.640 As I said, I've had lots of jobs. I hate 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.680 inside work. I'm under no illusion about outside work either. 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.760 A lot of people seem to glorify manual labor these days, 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.280 but working outside with your hands, your back, you're baking 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.160 knees and your sore feet and the hot and the 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.400 cold for endless weeks isn't particularly bucolic either. That's the 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.920 way I feel about fruit and veg faking. It's hard, repetitive, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.240 often very poorly compensated. I have massive respect for the 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.080 folks who do it, and I hope for a world 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.680 but one day they are fairly compensated and treated with dignity. 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:10.520 Right now, those folks who are out in the fields 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:12.520 all day in the sun and every penny they make, 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:17.320 and sadly that's not very many pennies. So recently, when 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:19.520 I saw a disturbing trend that people blaming workers for 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:23.520 the cyclospora outbreak that currently has America experiencing it unprecedented 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.320 in continents outbreak for the modern era, an outbreak that 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.000 has now killed two people, I wanted to weigh it. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.600 I don't think the reason twenty five thousand people, more 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.520 than five times the previous record number of cases, are 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.880 currently suffering through quote explosive diarrhea. It's something we can 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:42.920 lay at the feet of the hard working people who 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.960 pick your letters. I do think it's absolutely something we 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.360 can blame on labor exploitation, voluntary self regulation in the 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.520 food industry, and the slashing of the food safety apparatus 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.440 by DOGE. So let's get into America's in continent summer. 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.000 Who's behind it? On why half the Midwest is currently 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.160 experiencing Well, let's hear from an expert what they're experiencing. 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.560 It's called explosive diarrhea because your body is not really 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.280 good at telling the difference between liquid and gas. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.560 So the kind of signals. 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.960 You're getting when you have to go is a little 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:15.760 bit messed up, and so you may think it's one 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.120 thing and you've got just like a high volume of 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.120 liquid leaving your body at that point. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.079 That's Liz, who kindly responded to my request for a 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.120 shit'splosion understander when I posted it online recently. I think 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.400 now is a good time to say that, as tempted 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.880 as I am to use the word shitting yourself throughout 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.280 this episode, I understand that that's something that folks with 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:38.000 IBS would find it hurtful. So I'm going to try 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.080 and using continents instead, because I would rather be unkind 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.920 to people causing massing continents than the people living within continents. Also, 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.160 two people have lost their lives to this condition, so 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.160 I want to bring the gravity that this deserves. Anyway, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:50.920 here's Liz. 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.200 Even common Liz, I work for a health department on 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:55.119 the West Coast. 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.080 In case you somehow miss a NonStop stream of reporting 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.360 on this topic, let me catch you up. Fifteen states 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.680 in the United States are currently experiencing a cyclosporer outbreak. 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.080 Cyclospora is a little parasite and it finds its way 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.080 into the human body by ingestion. In this case, it 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.680 finds its way into the human body by ingesting letters. 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:17.480 The outbreak was first linked to a salad served at 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.719 Taco Bell. You shocked, but obviously Taco Bell doesn't grow salad. 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:25.400 A company called Tailor Farms the Mexico does, though. On 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.200 the seventeenth of July, they voluntarily pulled their iceberg letters 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.040 from shelves, and the next day they were identified as 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.960 the cause of this outbreak by the FDA. Then the 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.120 FDA announced they had found cyclospora in Tailor Farms letters, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:40.960 and then they retracted that statement, but they nonetheless said 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.920 that they had quote overwhelming epidemiological data that linked the 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.440 salad producer to the INCONTINENTUS outbreak flowing through the Midwest. 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.279 Tailor Farms is a huge conglomerate that grows much of 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.320 its lettuce in Mexico. It's based in California, and it 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.479 is the world's largest cut fruit and veedge producer. In 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.000 a profile of the company for the Berkeley High School 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.039 of Business newsletter, it's identified as being a quote seven 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.040 billion dollar enterprise. They don't know if that means revenue 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:09.919 or value or what, but it's a big ass company. 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.640 They have about twenty five thousand employees, which is roughly 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:14.600 equal to the number of people within continents due to 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.120 their lettuce. But what exactly is it cyclost for his 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:19.720 stuff and how did it get into a crunch. 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:24.599 Rep Cyclospora cataianensis only infects human beings, at least as 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:26.920 far as we know. In order to replicate, it has 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.920 to infect the lightning of our intestine, so it needs 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.200 to have a cycle through a human body in order 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.479 to infect other human beings. You know, it's shed when 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.440 somebody who has an infection has diarrhea or you know, 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:44.320 just otherwise has a bowel movement somewhere. That material gets 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:48.200 into the environment and then the parasite in the form 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.120 that it's shed, it has to spend a couple of 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:54.760 weeks out in just the open environment to kind of grow. 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.200 It's not really a shell, but it's kind of a shell. 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.279 It insists or it sporulates is the kind of term 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.520 for it. And then only after that happens can you 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:05.640 get infected with it. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:07.440 It's got a durable shell. 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.120 The shell allows it to kind of be ingested by people, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.000 get through our stomach acid and into our intestines, where 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:14.560 it breaks open and it starts to cycle. 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.920 Again. I think this is where the basis for the 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.320 supposition that this comes from farm workers comes from. But 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.559 let's consider that a bit more deeply. The Lotti goes, 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.960 I think that someone used the bathroom, either in a 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.000 field or in a porter body or something, and then 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:31.040 couldn't wash their hands or didn't wash their hands. Like 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.400 everyone to pause here and say, I'm an outside person 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.160 a shit in the woods more often than most people. 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:38.839 But most people are not just dropping trout in the field. 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:41.719 Let's throw that one out as a fairly ridiculous and 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:46.160 quite racist supposition. In some parts of the tropics, cyclospora 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.200 is endemic, and people there tend to suffer a lot 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.440 less of the symptoms that people hear suffer when they 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.200 conteract it. That means that sometimes cyclospora is present in 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.400 the water supply, and if clean water is not being 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.359 used to irrigate crops, then the cyclospora parasite could have 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.200 got on crops that way. The question we should be asking, though, 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.840 is how did it go from one field or number 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:14.840 of fields to twenty five thousand infections. It is possible 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.120 that someone wasn't provided with proper hand washing capabilities at 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.960 a porter body. Even if that person picked letters for 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:23.320 the rest of their shift, that does not account for 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.160 the scale of what's happening to the sewers of the 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:29.480 Midwest right now. I asked Liz, what might explain it? Now, 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.400 this is just speculation, but I do think it's well 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:33.240 informd speculation. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:34.440 You can have a. 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.720 Small number of heads of lettuce that have the parasite 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:39.880 on it, but if it's going through a shredder and 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.360 the shredder is not clean all the time, it's like. 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.800 A super spreader event for cyclospora. 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.720 Like you know, you're singing into the event in a 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.800 cruise ship, but it's cyclospora through a lettuce shrudder. 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.440 These facilities might wash letters with chlorine, but chlorine isn't 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.080 going to kill cyclosporer. So now let's just contaminated. Have 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:02.760 created a machine that effectively does every letter so that 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.360 goes through it with a microdose of parasites and then 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.400 sends it on its merry way north where it makes 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.119 it into a tailor farm's salad product that is sold 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.040 to any number of restaurants or customers, and then someone 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.440 eats it and then they experiencing continents. In fact, the 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.480 day that we're recording this, which is the fourteenth, a 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.600 couple of days before you receive it. We just learned 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:25.360 that the FDA has sent inspectors to a Tailor Farm's 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:28.040 processing plant in Mexico. I don't know why it took 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.480 them this long, but it does give more creed than 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.000 to this theory that Liz has. So how do we 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.400 get from that to an outbreak? Well? I have not 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.120 eaten at Taco Bell since George W. Bush's president, but 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.880 my understanding is that it has a bad reputation regarding 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:47.240 this exact issue. Actually, Taylor Farm supplies many other retailers 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.560 repaired food and sells some package salad products to consumers 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.160 that are also being recalled right now. Amusingly, I went 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.400 on the FDA website today to confirm the record items, 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.520 and I found that Tailor Farms is now doing a different, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.480 separate subsequent recall for salmonella as well. Great stuff, But 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.480 before we get any further into this, we're ten minutes 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.160 into the show existing. I think I have thoroughly burned 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.760 any future Taco Bell partnership potential, But like twenty five 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.400 thousand people in the Midwest, I am obligated to spray 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:25.360 some shit out right now in the form of advertisements 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:33.320 up to Saint Clair write a book about migrant labor 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.360 in the food industry, and I want to quote from 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:40.480 that now. So long as we have waged slavery, answered Shiliman, 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.920 it matters not in the least how debasing and repulsive 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.320 b task may be. It is easy to find people 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.000 to perform it. But just as soon as the labor 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.079 is set free, then the price of such work will 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.280 begin to rise. So one by one the old dingy 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.280 and unsanitary factories will come down. It will be cheaper 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.600 to build new and so the steam stitch will be 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.120 provided stoking machinery, and the dangerous trades will be made safe, 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.520 or substitutes will be found for their products. In exactly 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:09.080 the same way as the citizens of our industrial republic 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.960 become refined. Year by year, the cost of slaughter house 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.160 products will increase untill eventually those who want to eat 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:17.880 meat will have to do their own killing. And how 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.040 long do you think the custom would survive? Then? Well, 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.240 how did that work out? Turns out that instead of 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.680 conditions getting better, labour getting more free, and food price 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.160 is rising, capital got more free and labor got more controlled. 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:34.040 Starting with the passage of NAFTA, the North American Free 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.080 Trade Agreement, it has become easier and easier for money 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.360 to cross borders and harder and harder for people to 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:41.960 do the same thing. Indeed, the same year that NAFTA 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.079 came into force, Operation Gatekeeper here in San Diego saw 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.560 a significant upsweep and border militarization. US unions responded to 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.040 this moment badly. Rather than saying, if our bosses want 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.760 to employ people in Mexico and pay them less, we 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.440 will organize our siblings in Mexico and together we will 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:03.200 demand the same dignified way. They doubled down on economic nationalism, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.240 So now some of your letters comes from Mexico. We're 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.520 hard working folks get paid too little to work long 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.080 hours cutting it in the fields. So Taylor Farms can 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.240 make millions. They don't just abuse labor in Mexico. Here's 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.640 a quote from a twenty fourteen piece in The Guardian 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.079 about Taylor Farms. If you complain to them, they'll call 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.440 La migre, said Rosi Gualalupe, a former supervisor, using a 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.200 Latino term for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, A Department of 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.720 Homeland Security agency also known as ice. If you don't 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.360 have papers, that scares you. The managers said we didn't 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.480 have any rights to form a union because they're were 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.000 legals there. They said they'd start deporting people to Mexico, 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:45.800 said Julian Camachol, a former loader who said he lost 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.840 his job for trying to organize a union. The company 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:53.080 cited other reasons, including a safety violation. In fact, this 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.120 is not the first time Taylor Farms has been completed 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.920 in a diarrhea outbreak. Here's Charlie Kennett, a food microbiologist, 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.520 explaining little history of these outbreaks. 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.880 My name is Charles Kennet, but I go by Charlie 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.840 to most people, so you can call me Charlie. I've 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:12.120 had over thirty five years of experience. In nineteen ninety eight, 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:17.160 fruit salad of an unknown country of origin caused seven cases, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:22.760 mostly in Georgia. In nineteen ninety nine, raspberries caused ninety 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:26.040 four cases, mostly in Florida. In the year two thousand, 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:31.960 raspberries and blackberries from Guatemala caused nineteen cases from mostly Georgia. 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.079 So what you're seeing as a pattern of this happening 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:40.000 every year, but nothing like eleven thousand cases right in 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.720 two thousand and five, two day sel outbreaks. In two 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.679 thousand and eight sugar snap piece from Guatemala. And in 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:48.599 twenty thirteen, this was a big one, six hundred and 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:54.559 thirty one cases in North America. Trace to suppliers in Puebla, Mexico. 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.599 And guess who it was. Taylor Farms. 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.680 Data fom's responding to this outbreak there they did so 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.960 voluntarily and that sounds great, right, Well his list again. 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.600 Tailor Farms at that time, back back when these outbreaks 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.679 are happening, really put a lot of effort into trying 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.160 to voluntarily put a lot of protections into place to 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:16.720 make sure the food safety was better. 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:19.440 They've kind of completely destroyed all of their good wile 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:19.920 on that. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.080 It used to be like you want to protect people 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.520 from getting a food born illness from package lettuce, Like 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.040 look at Tailor Farms, and now it's like what. 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:27.880 Are you guys feeling? 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:33.600 Also, you have to think voluntary infection control, voluntary whatever 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:35.320 is just a way to not be regulated. 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:35.640 Right. 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.439 It's like we're showing so you don't have to regulate us. 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:42.000 But if you're going to have systems so complex like 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.400 food systems, so complex and international, you have to have 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.680 the capacity to regulate them to be able to ding them. 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.640 By twenty twenty four, Tailor of Moms would fully stop 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:52.959 volunteering to make its food safe. At least according to 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.320 an FDA report, they found a lack of hand washing 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:59.319 facilities and significant cross contamination between different foods dusts, which 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:01.840 sounds a lot like lizards hypothesis for the twenty twenty 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:09.600 six outbreak. All right, so we've established a villain the 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.040 comic book Evil Salad company that sells cut fruit and 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.680 bedge under several brands to change the customers all around 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.559 the country. And in case you're not yet convinced, please 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.840 also know that Barri Weiss's substact newsletter has entered this 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.320 discourse firmly on the side of the diarrhea, trying to 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.560 paint it as unremarkable and non lethal. But now that 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.240 two people have died and the outbreak has continued to 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:33.160 grow from more than a month despite being identified, it 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.280 seems entirely reasonable that the federal government should shoulder some 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.960 of the blame for failing to keep people safe. What 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.760 about that capacity to ding them that Liz mentioned, Well, 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.200 if you cast your mind back to twenty twenty five, 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.880 before Elon Musk had a tantrum and left the government, 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.800 the world's richest man was busy tearing apart parts to 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.600 the federal government that do useful things and posting racist 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.320 stuff on his website. He still does the racist stuff, 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.160 but after blowing up the capacity of agencies out the FDA, 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.760 he quit his job a doge and return to full 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.200 time post. So what does all this mean for the 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:05.200 safety of your salad? 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.000 I will say part of this has to do with 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.760 staffing cuts at FDA and at CDC. 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:11.280 For sure. 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:15.040 It's a lot harder to do this work when you're understaffed. 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.000 Like you can't just email people these questionnaires. You can't 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.160 just like put something on a machine and run it 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:22.560 and expect the results to like it is. It is 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.600 complicated to suss out whether a test is positive or negative. 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.400 Sometimes cyclospora is hard to diagnose. It's hard to detect. 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.520 It's especially hard to detect in produce. 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.000 The procedure for a trace back in the event of 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.720 an outbreak is pretty labor intensive, and at first it 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.600 often falls onto state public health agencies. Essentially, someone either 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.760 tests positive for food borne illness, which is less likely 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.240 in the case of cyclospora, as GI doctors tell me 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.400 it's not something they often test for at first, or 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.160 someone reports an outbreak, and then well, I'll let take 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:54.640 it from here. 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.560 So if you have a reportable disease like cyclospora, we 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.040 get a lot slip saying this person with this phone number, 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.920 this contact information tested positive for this pathogen. 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:08.880 From there, we. 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.800 Take a look at the actual test result, make sure 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.520 it looks like it's like a reasonably like accurate test result, 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:16.880 because sometimes there can be some you know, issues with 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.320 reporting or whatever. But usually we look at it it's like, Okay, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:21.800 this is definitely. 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:23.680 Somebody in our jurisdiction who we want to reach out to. 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:29.280 So we pull up something called the Hypothesis Generating Questionnaire, 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.440 which is a food survey. Right, we have a bunch 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.960 of questions for things that we know have caused outbreaks 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.920 of cyclostore in the past, and we call them up 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.920 and we ask this person, how like, can you spend 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:42.840 a little bit of time with us. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:44.880 We understand you've been sick recently. We'd like to learn 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.160 a little bit more about your illness and where. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.840 You may have caught it so that we can you know, 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.560 figure out if there's anything. 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:51.760 We need to do. 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.360 What follows is a fairly involved questioning which the public 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.320 health worker has to build trust with someone actively experiencing 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.560 incontinents and then do an in investigation into what they 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:03.760 ate or where they ate it in the past few weeks. 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.800 Because of the relatively long time period between ingesting something 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.600 with cyclostporer and the onset of symptoms, it can be 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.719 hard feels to recall, so there can be a lot 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.520 of credit card and receipt checking involved. Many of those 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.119 state agencies rely on federal grants, which they might not 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.600 be getting right now. So even though dough which cannot 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.520 directly fire state staffers, they're still suffering because Elon Musk, 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.080 the richest man in the world, a man who has 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:29.240 lived such a miserable life that he thinks homegrown tomatoes 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.320 are worse than store bought ones, decided it would be 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.280 funny to fuck up the USA's food safety apparatus for 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.840 a few months. Indeed, this could be behind the strange 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.199 saga of the FDA claiming has a positive test for 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.200 cyclostporer in tailor farm's letters, then rescinding that claim. PCR 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.440 tests like the one for cyclosporer can be difficult to read. 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.680 They're something called a cycle value threshold or a cycle 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:58.280 threshold value, where essentially you're going through these cycles of 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.960 amplifying the genetic comsion cereals and this CT value there's 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.880 a cutoff and where it counts as positive or negative. 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.480 My guess is there has something close to that cut off. 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.520 And because didn't have somebody who's really familiar with this 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.480 particular pathosion, it wasn't clear whether it was a positive 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:17.560 or negative. It was probably an indeterminate and there was 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.320 just maybe pressure to get something out fast, and so 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:21.480 they said, oh, we found it. 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.520 Then Taylor Farms came back. It's like that wasn't the 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:25.280 bashes of lettuce. 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.920 It's causing people to get sick, and it's a threshold value. 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.080 It's like on the cusp in an interminent value, so 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.000 you can't actually say it's there. Then there's probably political 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.240 pressure and things like that that was happening. 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:38.520 There certainly might be some political pressure. 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:39.080 Rep. 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.000 Robert Garcia, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.560 Government Reform, wrote to Taylor Farms, saying in. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.520 Twenty twenty five alone, Taylor Farms donated more than two 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.200 million dollars to political action committees tied to President Donald 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.840 Trump and other Republicans, and spent over eight hundred and 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.800 ten million dollars on lobbying related to food safety regulation. 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.200 Last morn, Taylor Farms donated one million dollars to MAGA, Inc. 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.680 President Trump's Superpack. This massive donation occurred less than one 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:12.000 week after the Trump administration agreed to delay implementation of 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.240 a critical food safety rule that would make it easier 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.040 to trace contaminated produce back to suppliers and remove it 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:19.919 from the food supply. 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.199 Taylor Farms went on social media after the FDA rescinded 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.399 its false positives and claimed it had received an quote 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.160 apology from the FDA. The FDA denies this, says strong 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.760 evidence still points to Taylor Farms. As I said earlier, 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.280 I think this points more to an overstretched agency than 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.280 active complexity. But let's look a little deeper in the 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.800 food safety rule. Garcia mentions he's referring to the Food 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.119 Traceability Rule, and that is part of the Food Safety 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:46.760 Modernization Act FSMA. 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:47.240 For sure. 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.320 The original compliance date for the Food Traceability Rule was Tuesday, 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.440 January twentieth, twenty twenty six, The FDA proposed to extend 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.040 the compliance date by thirty months in twenty twenty five, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.000 quoting from a document the Bipasser and Congressional Research Service. 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.800 In September twenty twenty four, a stakeholder round table report 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.040 published by the Reagan Udah Foundation for the FDA indicated 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.800 that industry stakeholders may not be aware of or prepared 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.520 to be in compliance with the rule by January twenty six. 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.680 In March twenty twenty five, the FDA announced its extension 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.399 to extend the compliance date by thirty months, and in 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.639 August twenty twenty five publish a Notice of proposed rulemaking 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.560 to provide additional time to cupboard entities to coordinate across 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.560 the supply chain to fully implement the rule. Records do 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.840