A nationwide outbreak of explosive diarrhea is currently underway, and it’s tied to a parasite the CDC quietly dropped from federal surveillance back in July 2025. That timing lines up almost exactly with the Trump administration’s broader gutting of health and science agencies under the “government efficiency” banner, HuffPost reports.
A parasite called Cyclospora has sickened over 1,000 people across 29 states, with Michigan getting hit the worst of all. The CDC would probably have caught this sooner — if it hadn’t stopped watching for it.
The agency’s FoodNet program used to track eight foodborne pathogens, until that surveillance simply stopped. Cyclospora, Campylobacter, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia were tracked. But in July 2025, right around the time the Trump administration started gutting federal health agencies and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushed out scientists and researchers, that surveillance ended.
What’s left of FoodNet now tracks exactly two things: Salmonella and E. coli. Everything else, apparently, is on the honor system.
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