It’s been more than a month since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration linked Taylor Farms to the deadly cyclospora outbreak, and yet the agency is only just now sending investigators to visit the produce grower’s facilities.
Investigators with the FDA finally arrived at Taylor Farms’s operation in Mexico to inspect facilities linked to the parasite that can cause explosive bowel movements, four U.S. officials told The Washington Post Friday.
Donald Prater, the FDA’s acting deputy commissioner for food, said that there was extensive research required before the agency could launch an investigation into the growing conditions.
But food safety experts and some former top FDA officials criticized the agency for waiting so long after publicly linking the company’s shredded lettuce to a national outbreak that has sickened more than 13,000 people and caused two deaths.
Barbara Kowalcyk, director of George Washington University’s Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security, told the Post that in-person work at the facility was necessary for prevention.
“Ideally, as soon as [the FDA] traced it back to the source, they would be out there working with the facility and specifically working with Taylor Farms to do a root-cause analysis so that we can understand what happened,” Kowalcyk said. “That’s really what’s going to drive prevention going forward.”
On July 17, the FDA notified Taylor Farms that its shredded iceberg lettuce had tested positive for cyclospora. Taylor Farms falsely claimed that the FDA had later walked back its determination, but still promptly recalled all of the shredded iceberg lettuce that was grown and processed in central Mexico out of an “abundance of caution.” A sanitation inspection conducted by Mexican officials between July 18 and July 20 tested negative for cyclospora. The company’s website claims that its own testing of roughly 2,000 samples also tested negative for the parasite.
Taylor Farms is the country’s largest supplier of fresh produce, and is also pro-Donald Trump. The company sells products to Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, SYSCO, Aldi, Target, and Dollar General.
Before any of this, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly cut back on parasite monitoring.
President Trump has hit the highest national disapproval rating on gas prices in recorded history, as 79 percent of Americans—and a whopping 52 percent of Republicans—feel negatively about how he’s handled skyrocketing gas prices.
“No president has been hated more when it comes to gas prices,” CNN’s Harry Enten said during a Friday segment. “79 percent … that is the highest disapproval rating for any president on record.” Former Presidents George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who each had their own struggles with gas prices, never eclipsed a 75 percent disapproval rating on the issue.
Enten: "Even a majority of Republicans — 52% — that loyal Republican base who has been through thick and thin with Donald John Trump, even they have turned against the president on gas prices … these are just atrocious numbers" pic.twitter.com/hc5xJfrA6O
“Donald Trump takes the cake as these $4-plus gas prices continue to give us pain at the pump. The American people are taking their anger out on the President of the United States,” Enten said.
The poll’s party line breakdown is even more devastating, as 52 percent of Republicans disapproving may put Trump-backed candidates at risk in their November elections as they have to answer for his decisions—especially in swing states. 96 percent of Democrats disapproved, along with 85 percent of independents.
These are startling numbers that Trump can’t convincingly blame on decisions Biden made three years ago. Gas prices are high—and will continue to be high—because Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started bombing Iran and Lebanon, and Iran closed the crucial Strait of Hormuz in response. That’s why your gas is $4 for the third time this year—something else that has never happened before.