Michigan Reports Over 5,000 Cyclosporiasis Cases on Friday

Michigan reported more than 5,000 cases of cyclosporiasis on Friday, a 1,300-case increase from Wednesday, along with 102 hospitalizations. The state typically records between 40 and 50 cases in a full year. The CDC has linked cases in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

Health officials in Michigan detected the first signs of the outbreak in late June 2025 and issued a notice on July 1 alerting home cooks and commercial kitchens to risks from potentially contaminated produce. Staff have since spent more than 1,000 hours interviewing patients.

The CDC issued a health advisory to providers on July 14 and on July 17 pointed to a shredded iceberg supplier in Mexico while naming Taco Bell as an affected restaurant.

The outbreak has occurred after the Trump administration cut $12 billion in public health funding in March 2025, including laboratory capacity, disease monitoring and outbreak investigation. Michigan lost an entire regional laboratory and 23 employees in its state bureau of infectious diseases. Local health departments in the state lost 123 staff.

Half of U.S. states joined a lawsuit to recover the funds, but states outside the suit received none. The CDC has lost about one-third of its staff and most permanent leadership positions remain empty.

Michigan public health officials said communication from federal agencies has been less extensive than in prior outbreaks. The administration made cyclospora reporting to FoodNet optional in 2025. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his first public comments on the outbreak Friday.

“There are cyclospora outbreaks every summer,” he said on a Tampa-based podcast. ” Michigan has four staffers who specialize in stomach illnesses and about 2,000 samples awaiting sequencing at $122 per test.