The pro-Trump lettuce farmer Taylor Farms has deleted a social media post that attempted to distance itself from the ongoing “explosive diarrhea” parasite outbreak.
Taylor Farms had originally said it was “voluntarily removing” its iceberg lettuce grown in central Mexico because it had been linked to cyclosporiasis, a gastrointestinal illness caused by the parasite.
“While the FDA traceback is indicating a specific independent farm, which represents less than 1% of the U.S.’s iceberg lettuce supply, as the potential source of the outbreak, we have removed all iceberg lettuce from the region indefinitely,” the company said in a statement.
The company later asserted the whole thing was a mix-up, and that the FDA had “apologized” to the company for “a false positive.”
“Yesterday, FDA informed Taylor Fresh Foods that one of its iceberg lettuce products from central Mexico tested positive for cyclospora,” the company wrote. “Today, we were informed that FDA made a mistake, and this was a false positive.”
At the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA have come out swinging, firing back on social media in a Trumpian social media style.
In one post, HHS asserted that Taylor Farms’ new statement “DOES NOT change the basis for FDA’s ongoing outbreak investigation or the overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms.”
The statements are still on the Taylor Farms website, but have been scrubbed from social media. The Daily Beast has reached out to the company for comment.
Taylor Fresh Foods Inc., the parent company of Taylor Farms, donated $1 million to Make America Great Again Inc. in March 2025, just a few weeks into the second Trump administration.
The company has also donated to President Donald Trump, MAGA Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham and other Republican candidates, as well as some Democratic candidates.
The company has additionally recently hired former Trump White House official Trent Morse as a lobbyist.
Executives from the company also met with officials from the White House and FDA last week, just one day before Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall of lettuce sourced from Central Mexico.
Additionally, CNN has reported that the Trump administration’s funding cuts to a lab that monitors parasitic outbreaks have created “the perfect storm” in the government’s cyclosporiasis response.
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, has cited another, separate cyclosporiasis surveillance program that was negatively impacted by DOGE cuts as part of the reason for the botched parasite response.
“Your foolish and self-indulgent demolition of critical public health programs puts Americans at risk,” Ossoff wrote in a scathing letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Cases of cyclosporiasis, the gastrointestinal illness caused by the parasite, have surged in recent months.
More than 30 states have reported cases this year, as the parasite has sickened at least 1,645 people in the U.S. and hospitalized 141, according to the CDC. The CDC has said it is looking into more than 5,000 people who may have also been infected with the parasite.
