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.
CDC talking points obtained by NBC News last summer put the blame squarely on funding, stating that budget simply hadn't kept up with what was needed to keep FoodNet surveillance running for all eight pathogens. At the time, a CDC spokesperson downplayed the cuts to NBC, suggesting state health departments could fill the gap. HuffPost reached out to the CDC for comment late Friday and had not heard back. We can't imagine why.
Colorado was one of the states that took the CDC's cue, scaling back its own surveillance once the funding ran dry. Now it's dealing with its own cyclospora outbreak. Denver resident Reba Pousma, who likely has the illness, described the ordeal in blunt terms — five days in and still going to the bathroom more than 40 times a day with no end in sight.
The guy who's spent years questioning basic science just quietly defunded the system that catches outbreaks before they become outbreaks—apparently working as intended. You put a guy who thinks raw milk is a health food in charge of disease tracking, and disease started spreading untracked. Shocking. Very on brand. Very MAHA.
