{"id":4568,"date":"2026-07-23T07:25:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4568"},"modified":"2026-07-23T07:25:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T07:25:25","slug":"taylor-farms-lettuce-sample-produced-false-positive-for-cyclospora-fda-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4568","title":{"rendered":"Taylor Farms lettuce sample produced false positive for cyclospora, FDA says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784547062336_tdy_news_7a_thompson_cyclospora_260720_S3_1920x1080-rbo5h5.jpg\" alt=\"\"><br \/>\nJuly 20, 2026, 12:30 AM EDT\u00a0\/\u00a0Updated\u00a0July 20, 2026, 2:41 PM EDT<\/p>\n<p>The false positive was discovered when the FDA again reviewed the results of a sample from Taylor Farms de Mexico that was reported positive Saturday<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs of July 19, 2026, there are no confirmed positive sample results for product testing for Cyclospora,\u201d the agency said in its statement<\/p><figcaption>In a statement late Sunday, Taylor Farms said the FDA made a mistake and apologized for the false positive.Benjamin Fanjoy \/ Getty Images<\/figcaption><p>The false positive does not change the company\u2019s earlier voluntary recall of its iceberg lettuce that was<\/p>\n<p>Taylor Farms, which produces lettuce for Taco Bell and multiple grocery retailers, continues \u201cworking with the firm to ensure product implicated in this outbreak has been removed from the market,\u201d the FDA said in a statement Sunday evening<\/p>\n<p>In a statement Sunday night, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taylorfarms.com\/newsroom\/taylor-fresh-foods-statement-regarding-cyclospora-outbreak\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Taylor Farms said<\/a>the FDA made a mistake and apologized. It echoed the agency\u2019s statement and said the FDA has not identified a \u201csingle positive product test result for Cyclospora.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A U.S. Department of <a href=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4502\" title=\"Samsung unveils AI-powered Health Assistant\">Health<\/a> and Human Services spokesperson on Monday said that the FDA did not apologize, but \u201csimply sent Taylor Farms the facts and what was found following the study.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taylor Farms said it will continue to work with <a href=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4468\" title=\"Woman&#039;s life as a refugee inspired her public health degree\">public health<\/a> officials investigating the origins of the outbreak<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How health officials are tracking the cyclospora outbreaks<\/li>\n<li>Taylor Farmshas had food safety problems before.Now it\u2019s linked to <a href=\"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/?p=4518\" title=\"Yet another wake-up call on declining child health | Letters\">another<\/a> outbreak.<\/li>\n<li>Eyes on the CDC in the cyclosporiasis outbreak<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the FDA\u2019s Saturday notice of the positive test, which it has since removed from its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/food\/outbreaks-foodborne-illness\/investigation-5-state-outbreak-cyclospora-illnesses-iceberg-lettuce-july-2026?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">updates on the outbreak<\/a>, it said that product was not part of the existing Taylor Farms recall and that the company was \u201cworking to identify whether any part of this implicated lot is available in commerce or in consumers homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The company announced Friday that Taylor Farms de Mexico was voluntarily recalling iceberg lettuce he potential to be contaminated with Cyclospora.\u201d The recalled products had been distributed to stores in 27 states, according to the FDA<\/p>\n<p>The recall came after the FDA zeroed in on the product, which it said had been provided to Taco Bell locations in five states where people ate before being sickened<\/p>\n<p>The same day, Taco Bell said it would no longer use the producer for its lettuce<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 7,000 casesof cyclosporiasis have been confirmed or are under investigation in the United States since May 1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The foodborne illness can cause severe watery diarrhea, fatigue or loss of appetite, experts say<\/p>\n<p>The FDA said Saturday\u2019s positive test was an erroneous result based on false amplification. \u201cThe finding does not represent true amplification and should be considered a false positive,\u201d it said<\/p>\n<p>Amplification creates copies of samples used to investigate pathogens, which can be easier to identify when amplified. According to research in the Annals of Clinical &amp; Laboratory Science, \u201cAmplification-based techniques are now used routinely in clinical laboratories to detect organisms that do not grow in conventional culture media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said last week that it is \u201creally hard to grow cyclospora in the lab.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Donald W. Schaffner, chair of the department of food science at Rutgers University, said Sunday that the Taylor Farms recall was \u201cthe right thing\u201d for it to do, regardless of the status of lab tests, and said the FDA showed courage in admitting it was wrong about the positive test<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately testing for this organism is difficult,\u201d he said by email. \u201cFalse positives are always possible. In this case, I think it may lead to more confusion and uncertainty in the minds of consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said regulatory agencies should have to provide more data when announcing positive results, including the false positive rate<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would hope that consumers wouldn\u2019t ignore it,\u201d he said, referring to the false positive, \u201cbut realize that the science is complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The false positive was discovered when the FDA again reviewed the results of a sample from Taylor Farms de Mexico that was reported positive Saturday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[264,265,267,266,263],"class_list":["post-4568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-news","tag-farms","tag-lettuce","tag-produced","tag-sample","tag-taylor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4570,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4568\/revisions\/4570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lumeamara.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}