This summer, every meal feels like a risk.

The summer of 2026 has brought an unprecedented surge in foodborne illnesses across the United States, transforming routine meals into sources of anxiety for many. Just as the nation grappled with a significant cyclospora outbreak linked to tainted iceberg lettuce, new threats emerged. Salmonella has been detected in diverse products ranging from jalapeños and eggs to even dog food, while a dual-pathogen outbreak involving E. coli and salmonella has been traced to alfalfa sprouts. This escalating crisis has led experts to attribute the "summer of sickness" to chronic underfunding in food safety systems, critical gaps in federal food policy, and recent reductions to the country’s public health infrastructure under President Donald Trump’s administration.

The sheer scale of the problem is starkly evident in official figures. WIRED’s analysis of publicly available data from the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) investigations into foodborne illnesses reveals a dramatic increase. The agency has identified over 12,800 illnesses tied to foodborne outbreaks in 2026 alone, a figure that already far surpasses the total recorded in any year since 2020. To put this into perspective, the entirety of last year, 2025, saw only 895 cases related to foodborne outbreaks. This exponential rise underscores a system under severe strain.

Barbara Kowalcyk, director of George Washington University’s Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition, articulated the gravity of the situation, stating, “What is happening this summer just demonstrates to me the vulnerabilities in the system—and what happens when you stress the system.” Her sentiment resonates with a growing public concern that the mechanisms designed to protect America’s food supply are faltering.

To fully grasp the severity of this summer’s health crisis, one must understand the magnitude of the cyclospora outbreak. Jennifer McEntire, a food microbiologist and founder of the consulting firm Food Safety Strategy, described it as "absolutely unprecedented." The FDA’s data, which draws from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) case counts, confirms this as the largest cyclospora outbreak the agency has investigated in the U.S. since the 1990s.

However, even these official figures likely undercount the true number of people affected. The FDA’s statistics focus solely on illnesses directly linked to a specific outbreak under active investigation. For the cyclospora outbreak, approximately 67 percent of the CDC’s 17,180 laboratory-confirmed cases in the U.S. have been definitively linked to iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms. The remaining confirmed cases are attributed to other smaller outbreaks or isolated infections, each requiring separate, full-blown FDA investigations. Furthermore, the CDC is aware of at least 11,844 additional cases that have either not yet been confirmed by a laboratory test or require further analysis before a definitive link can be established. This suggests that the actual burden of illness is significantly higher than what is officially reported.

Cyclospora infections were once considered rare compared to more common foodborne pathogens like salmonella and E. coli, typically causing only a few hundred to a few thousand illnesses annually in the U.S. Its relative obscurity meant that cyclospora was not routinely included in standard diagnostic panels for gastrointestinal diseases. This lack of routine testing can easily mask the true extent of an outbreak, especially considering the many individuals who might experience diarrhea from the parasite but choose not to seek medical attention. The parasite itself is particularly challenging to eliminate, often lodging itself deep within the crevices and folds of leafy greens, herbs, and berries. These foods are predominantly consumed raw, and common food sanitizers are largely ineffective against cyclospora because it forms a tough, protective outer shell that resists conventional cleaning methods.

While the biological quirks of the parasite contribute to its persistence, they do not fully explain the unprecedented scale of this outbreak. A critical factor, as reported by WIRED in October 2025, is the significant reduction in staff at the CDC. The agency had reduced its workforce by approximately 3,000 employees—roughly a quarter of its total staff—since President Trump’s second term began. This included vital personnel in a specialized lab responsible for responding to cyclospora outbreaks. Joel Barratt, the former leader of this molecular parasitology team, revealed that the lab’s staff had been drastically cut from 11 people to just three, severely hampering its capacity to monitor and respond to such a widespread threat.

Compounding the issue of reduced staffing, both the CDC and the FDA have experienced leadership vacuums at the highest levels. The CDC operated without a dedicated director for nearly a year until the Senate finally confirmed Erica Schwartz to the role in early August. Similarly, the FDA has lacked a permanent commissioner since Marty Makary resigned in May, leaving crucial decision-making positions unfilled during a critical period of public health challenges.

Further exacerbating the crisis are the financial cuts imposed by the Trump administration. In 2025, approximately $12 billion in grants for state health departments were cut. These departments are typically the first line of defense in responding to foodborne illness outbreaks. Reuters reported in late July 2026 that in Michigan, a state at the epicenter of the cyclospora outbreak, the loss of these funds resulted in 23 fewer infectious disease workers and 123 fewer county health staff. Health department employees in Michigan informed Reuters that they were forced to reallocate staff from other areas, yet still lacked the necessary resources to adequately investigate the thousands of cyclospora cases within the state.

Implementing new food safety policies could offer a vital safeguard against large-scale outbreaks. One such policy, a traceability rule issued by the FDA in 2022, is designed to require businesses involved in the manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding of leafy greens and other high-risk foods to maintain more detailed recordkeeping. This rule aims to facilitate faster and more effective investigations by making it easier to trace contaminated products back to their source. However, in November, Congress voted to delay the implementation of this crucial rule until July 20, 2028. In response, a coalition of food safety and consumer health groups sent a letter to Congress earlier this month, urgently requesting a reconsideration of the delay, emphasizing the rule’s potential to enhance public safety.

Even with the eventual implementation of this new rule, a significant loophole exists that would make outbreaks tied to foreign products, such as the Taylor Farms lettuce imported from Mexico, difficult to track. De Ann Davis, senior vice president of science at the Western Growers Association, which represents farmers in Arizona, California, Colorado, and New Mexico, pointed out that the rule does not apply to importers, brokers, or trading companies that coordinate the movement of food but do not physically possess or handle it. "In other words," Davis explained, "the food can come in without anybody checking that it actually has the necessary traceability information. The importer is the one who has to make sure that the food is compliant with those regulations, but they’re not subject to the regulations." This regulatory gap complicates the tracing of foodborne illness outbreaks linked to foreign products, especially when the original foreign suppliers may not adhere to rigorous record-keeping standards. "We are relying on those foreign countries to be informed about the regulations of the US, but they are not subject to the regulations of the US," Davis added, highlighting a critical point of vulnerability in the U.S. food safety system.

Lapses in food safety inspections are not a new phenomenon and predate the Trump administration. A January 2025 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that the FDA conducted an average of only 917 foreign inspections per year between 2018 and 2023. This figure is strikingly low when compared to the 8,353 domestic inspections carried out over the same period. Compounding this, CBS News reported that inspections have fallen even further since last year’s budget cuts. The Taylor Farms Mexico facility, which was implicated in the recent cyclospora outbreak, has not undergone an FDA inspection since 2019, underscoring the systemic challenges in monitoring imported food products.

In a statement to WIRED, the FDA asserted that it requested expanded state and local information sharing, as well as foreign food facility fee collection authority, in its 2027 budget proposal. The agency maintained that its "robust response" in identifying the source of the cyclospora outbreak "demonstrates exactly how the agency’s risk-based oversight system is designed to work." The statement further claimed that under the Trump administration, the FDA has "increased the number of unannounced foreign inspections and is actively expanding staffing at foreign posts." The FDA concluded by stating, "Suggesting that the FDA’s ability to protect the food supply can be measured by a single inspection statistic ignores the agency’s comprehensive oversight system."

Beyond the cyclospora crisis, the other concurrent outbreaks of foodborne illness remain a significant concern, even if they are smaller in scale. Jennifer McEntire noted that "multiple visible outbreaks with different organisms associated with very different types of products is kind of unusual, not unprecedented, but certainly unusual."

The contaminated jalapeños, for instance, have triggered the largest salmonella outbreak in the U.S. since 2024, when an outbreak linked to cucumbers caused 551 illnesses that summer. While severe, these numbers remain far below the worst recorded salmonella outbreak, which saw an estimated 224,000 people fall ill in 1994 after consuming contaminated Schwan’s ice cream.

Adding to the complexity, it is rare to discover two distinct disease-causing pathogens in the same product simultaneously. This unusual scenario is precisely what occurred with alfalfa sprouts, found to be contaminated with both E. coli and salmonella. This dual-pathogen outbreak has affected 55 individuals across 15 states, with two people reportedly infected by both pathogens. As a result, Everything Sprouts has initiated a recall of specific lots of alfalfa sprouts sold under the Calco and Everything Sprouts brands at various retailers and grocery stores. The sprouts were traced back to a hydroponic facility located in Minnesota.

Despite the calendar approaching autumn, Kowalcyk cautioned that the summer of sickness is far from over. Many pathogens, including those responsible for these outbreaks, thrive in hot, humid environments. With plenty of warm weather still anticipated, and what is projected to be the strongest El Niño on record potentially driving temperatures even higher in some regions, the threat remains. This means that individuals seeking peace of mind in restaurants, drive-thrus, or the produce aisle after Labor Day may not find it.

"A lot of our foodborne illness cases peak in August, September, even early October," Kowalcyk warned. "So we’re just in the beginning." The confluence of environmental factors, systemic vulnerabilities, and policy shortcomings suggests that the nation’s struggle with foodborne illnesses may continue to intensify before any relief is in sight.