Musk and the DOGE kids ripped out America's warning systems
Death from cyclosporiasis is considered uncommon, but the
spread of the illness is now widespread, with cases now in 15 states. In
Michigan alone, there are 11,234 cases, including 193 hospitalizations.
Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control count 18,000 cases of explosive
diarrhea, intestinal infection and resulting dehydration.
The illness is known to exist during spring and summer, but
this year’s numbers are much higher than normal. Its specific cause is a
single-celled parasite that lives exclusively in humans and causes particularly
violent diarrhea. Infection is almost always through ingesting food or water
contaminated with feces — improper sanitation at farms or food processing
facilities. Failure to provide field workers with adequate toilets or sinks can
mean outbreaks.
Since the disease emerged a few weeks ago, there has been
effort to identify its origin with efforts centering on Taylor Farms irrigation
and operations in Mexico. Taylor Farms, which issued a recall, distributes
iceberg lettuce mostly to market chains and restaurants across the Midwest.
Early on, news reported that Taylor Fresh Farms was a million-dollar donor to
Trump political causes and noted that while there is scrutiny of the food
problem, there has been none by prosecutorial agencies.
The State of Illness
There has been relatively less focus on whether the
probabilities for problems with this food-borne disease – as with contagious
illnesses more generally – were worsened by administration budget cuts and Elon
Musk’s DOGE attacks on government inspectors since Donald Trump took office in
2025.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
has ballyhooed a change in the nation’s basic food pyramid to emphasize more
meat, dairy and unprocessed foods, but has been light on concerns about the
rise of actual diseases like measles, flu, and communicable illnesses. Together
with the Department of Government Efficiency “chain saw” approach to government
services, Team Trump has attacked vaccines, medical research, CDC warnings and
operations, and more.
The Trump administration has targeted many supports that
keep the Affordable Care Act afloat, as well as undercutting Medicare, Medicaid
and health-adjacent programs for food stamps. It has cut foreign AID efforts
almost entirely, affecting health and food concerns globally.
Last July 2025, the CDC quietly changed the
monitoring of cyclospora from mandatory to optional in Foodnet, its
pathogen-tracking partnership with 10 state health departments, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration
In The
American Prospect, writer Ryan Cooper says baldly, “Trump has wreaked
havoc on American food safety infrastructure.”
The DOGE Role
New
Republic and Wired argue
that in the name of eliminating “waste,” DOGE cut the office meant to monitor
cyclospora from 11 employees to three. Instead, we now have human “waste” of a
different sort, allowing one unnamed senator to label what is going on as “DOGE
shit.”
Scientist Joel Barratt, who formerly led that operation,
told Wired that it’s not only cyclospora at risk, but other more dangerous
pathogens, including screwworms and measles viruses. This week, two restaurant
chains pulled jalapeño peppers after salmonella reports.
Cooper’s analysis details how
the administration devastated American food safety and public health
infrastructure in ways relevant to the outbreak, though the White House
continues to say that cuts in funding did not impact response to cyclospora at
all.
Cooper argues that when agencies are staffed, we don’t hear
about health threats. In DOGE’s hands, lack of threat translated into targeting
of waste.
As part of his initial wholesale attack on food safety,
Trump dissolved a Department of Agriculture National Advisory Committee
on Microbiological Criteria for Foods meant to provide scientific advice and
coordinate best practices for defending against dangerous microbes. Over a
year, the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service had lost 913 staff, while the
Food and Nutrition Service lost 564. The agency’s National Advisory Committee
on Meat and Poultry Inspection was also axed. More than
20,000 workers left USDA last year.
Among public health agencies, the CDC has lost nearly 3,000
under Trump, while the Food and Drug Administration has lost more than 4,000.
Food safety inspections have dwindled as a result. In February 2025, then FDA
Deputy Commissioner Jim Jones resigned from the agency’s Human Foods Program,
which monitors food safety, after dozens of his workers were sacked.
Trump has bragged of telling corporations he is eliminating
regulations, seemingly inviting corporate workarounds for now-eliminated safety
and environmental concerns.
State health departments are trying to replace federal
services. Stat News says most state health departments are not really equipped
to collect and compare case information across multiple states. Coordinating
national responses to national problems is the most basic responsibility of the
federal government, and under Trump it just is not happening.
Eliminating half the National Weather Service’s forecasting balloons over “waste” concerns has demonstrably worsened preparations for sudden storms. It is not a difficult leap to conclude that the same is coming true for food safety.
Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York. As an editor, Terry created new approaches in newsrooms, built technological tools and digital media. He pursued efforts to recruit and train minority journalists and in scholarship programs. A resident of Harlem, he volunteers in community storytelling, arts in education programs, tutoring and is an active freelance trombone player.
