Opinion & Contributed Articles

Publisher's Platform: Food safety is not expensive. Outbreaks are expensive.

USDA says Cyclospora costs America $5.3 million a year. The program I want restored cost $4.5 million a year. This summer alone has already blown past both.

By Bill Marler

/ 3 Aug 2026

Publisher's Platform: Food safety is not expensive. Outbreaks are expensive.

Publisher’s Platform: The T-Shirts Arrived. All of Them Say: Test Infant Formula for Botulism.

A t-shirt in a plastic bottle will not produce one either. But it is small, it is strange, it does not throw away easily, and it says the entire argument in one line. Sometime in September a staffer is going to unroll one and read it out loud. That is the whole idea.

By Bill Marler

/ 2 Aug 2026

Publisher’s Platform: The T-Shirts Arrived. All of Them Say: Test Infant Formula for Botulism.

Publisher's Platform: The Fifty-State Cyclospora count is 20,927 this morning. The President has said one thing about it. The Secretary says it is under control. Here is what they should have said instead.

Ohio released new numbers today — 4,013 cases in 80 counties, up from 2,576 a week ago. Add the states up, one by one, all fifty of them, and the floor under this outbreak this morning is 20,927 people.

By Bill Marler

/ 31 Jul 2026

Publisher's Platform: The Fifty-State Cyclospora count is 20,927 this morning. The President has said one thing about it. The Secretary says it is under control. Here is what they should have said instead.

Publisher's Platform: The FDA closed the 2024 romaine E. coli outbreak without naming Taylor Farms. Sixteen months later we are counting 18,000 Cyclospora cases

Transparency is not a courtesy the government extends to a consumer standing in a produce aisle when it happens to be convenient. It is a record.

By Bill Marler

/ 29 Jul 2026

Publisher's Platform: The FDA closed the 2024 romaine E. coli outbreak without naming Taylor Farms. Sixteen months later we are counting 18,000 Cyclospora cases

Publisher's Platform: The lettuce pitchforks are out -- 7 letters in 14 days

Not one of these letters has been publicly answered

By Bill Marler

/ 29 Jul 2026

Publisher's Platform: The lettuce pitchforks are out -- 7 letters in 14 days

Publisher's Platform: There is no kill step for Cyclospora

The best consumer-level data is a 2021 study in Foods . . . nothing removed all of it. These oocysts are stickier than Cryptosporidium and Giardia.

By Bill Marler

/ 27 Jul 2026

Publisher's Platform: There is no kill step for Cyclospora

Signs of the Times

Tucked among the boutiques, bars and novelty shops were storefront signs that had nothing to do with tourism and everything to do with the national conversation surrounding food safety.

By Darin Detwiler

/ 27 Jul 2026

Publisher's Platform: Does a public swimming complex adjacent to Taylor Farms lettuce operation pose a Cyclospora threat? Probably.

Two hundred and thirty-five meters from the processing building — roughly eight hundred feet, a three-minute walk — sits Balneario Las Fajanas, a public thermal-water bathing complex with pools, water slides, changing rooms, showers, grills and picnic shelters, open every day of the year.

By Bill Marler

/ 24 Jul 2026

Publisher's Platform: Does a public swimming complex adjacent to Taylor Farms lettuce operation pose a Cyclospora threat? Probably.

Publisher’s Platform: The Traceability Rule was supposed to be law in January. This cyclospora outbreak started in May.

I have spent more than thirty years watching companies mistake a negative product sample for innocence. Product testing finds contamination when you are lucky. Cyclospora makes you unlucky more often than most.

By Bill Marler

/ 21 Jul 2026

Publisher’s Platform: The Traceability Rule was supposed to be law in January. This cyclospora outbreak started in May.

Publisher's Platform: Reap What You Sow

Fourteen years ago, the produce lobby decided it did not want anyone testing its lettuce. This summer it got a look at the world it asked for. You reaped what you sowed. It is time to plant something better.

By Bill Marler

/ 19 Jul 2026

Publisher’s Platform: The Largest Foodborne Outbreaks of the Last Fifty Years. Now Count the Sick with Cyclospora in Michigan.

Fifty years of outbreaks and the pattern does not move. We find out how big it was afterward, from a journal article, years later, when it is too late for the rule to matter and too late for the family.

By Bill Marler

/ 18 Jul 2026

Publisher’s Platform: The Largest Foodborne Outbreaks of the Last Fifty Years. Now Count the Sick with Cyclospora in Michigan.

Publisher's Platform: Sen. Klobuchar wants food safety programs the Administration cut put back

She’s right — and the cyclospora numbers are worse than her letter says.

By Bill Marler

/ 16 Jul 2026

Publisher's Platform: Sen. Klobuchar wants food safety programs the Administration cut put back

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Opinion & Contributed Articles

Publisher's Platform: Food safety is not expensive. Outbreaks are expensive.

Publisher’s Platform: The T-Shirts Arrived. All of Them Say: Test Infant Formula for Botulism.

Publisher's Platform: The Fifty-State Cyclospora count is 20,927 this morning. The President has said one thing about it. The Secretary says it is under control. Here is what they should have said instead.

Publisher's Platform: The FDA closed the 2024 romaine E. coli outbreak without naming Taylor Farms. Sixteen months later we are counting 18,000 Cyclospora cases

Publisher's Platform: The lettuce pitchforks are out -- 7 letters in 14 days

Publisher's Platform: There is no kill step for Cyclospora

Signs of the Times

Publisher's Platform: Does a public swimming complex adjacent to Taylor Farms lettuce operation pose a Cyclospora threat? Probably.

Publisher’s Platform: The Traceability Rule was supposed to be law in January. This cyclospora outbreak started in May.

Publisher's Platform: Reap What You Sow

Publisher’s Platform: The Largest Foodborne Outbreaks of the Last Fifty Years. Now Count the Sick with Cyclospora in Michigan.

Publisher's Platform: Sen. Klobuchar wants food safety programs the Administration cut put back

Your Support Protects Public Health