Nearly 21,000 Americans are confirmed sick with Cyclospora, and three different government sources can’t agree on the actual number. When the administration finally addressed it, the best they offered was a joke. In this episode of Don’t Eat Poop!, Matt and Francine break down what accountability was supposed to look like, and the eight concrete fixes still sitting on someone’s desk.

They walk through the math behind the conflicting case counts, why the government’s own numbers may be undercounting sick Americans by a factor of 10 or more, and the specific policy changes that could stop the next outbreak from disappearing into a spreadsheet.

Spoiler alert: the real number of people sick could be well over a million, and nobody in Washington wants to say so.

In this episode:

💩 00:00:00 Bill Marler’s Article: Govt’s Response to Cyclospora

💩 00:06:09 CDC’s Three Conflicting Case Counts

💩 00:08:32 The Government’s Flawed Food Safety Advice

💩 00:09:48 The White House’s Silence So Far

💩 00:11:15 Extrapolating The Cyclospora Case Count

💩 00:13:42 Eight Recommended Fixes For The FDA

💩 00:19:51 Reviving The Microbiological Data Program

💩 00:24:48 FSMA 204 And The Water Rule

💩 00:29:06 The Economic Cost Of Outbreaks

Disclaimer: Episode title and content do not constitute legal or health advice.

Resources from this episode

Use the code POOP for 25% off the Food Safety Consortium Conference: https://www.eventleaf.com/e/FoodSafetyConsortium

Check out the article we’re discussing in this episode: 

• Food Safety News: 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.

Noteworthy quotes from this episode

“ I do believe the states should be able to make their own laws, but I do think that the federal government should also have laws pertaining to food safety, and those laws should be statistics.” – Matt Regusci

“Food safety’s not political. We’re talking about people’s well-being.” – Francine L Shaw

Connect with Francine, Matt, and the “Don’t Eat Poop!” show on LinkedIn! 

Check out Francine’s book Who Watches the Kitchen? on Amazon!