Is Trump in cahoots with diarrhea parasite guy?
Your right to eat uncontaminated lettuce is apparently for sale
Hi readers,
There’s a severe diarrhea parasite in your lettuce, and Donald Trump’s administration sure appears to be in cahoots with the company to which it was traced.
Taylor Farms, the company linked to the contaminated shredded lettuce causing a massive cyclosporiasis outbreak throughout the US and Mexico, donated $1 million to a MAGA superPAC in March 2025, according to an investigation by public health lawyer Matthew Cortland. That same week, the FDA announced that it was delaying implementation of its new "Food Traceability Rule”—which would have made tracing the parasite back to Taylor Farms much easier—by 30 months.
A year later, a cyclosporiasis outbreak has spread throughout 34 states, sickened thousands of people, and sent hundreds to the hospital. The Trump Administration first pointed the finger at Taco Bell shredded lettuce, which comes from the produce giant Taylor Farms. And the FDA finally revealed on Saturday—more than a month after the outbreak started—that Taylor Farms lettuce has tested positive for traces of the parasite, prompting a mass recall of their product from 27 states.
It seemed like the problem was finally on its way to being fixed. Then Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor, a Trump donor himself, visited the White House this weekend. And just one day after the FDA had announced the positive test on Taylor Farms lettuce, they reversed the announcement, called it a “false positive,” and apologized to Taylor Farms.
The company has now claimed it’s exonerated and deleted posts about its own bagged lettuce making people sick.
Now, there’s a chance that this really was a false positive and we’re back to square one on pinning down the sources of the shitty lettuce. But Trump is running an openly pay-to-play administration. He literally sells pardons to white collar criminals; he’s rewarded donors to his ballroom with billions of dollars in federal contracts and other blatant policy favors. He’s not even trying to hide his corruption. So when a Trump donor makes a trip to the White House and his food company is suddenly absolved of spreading the explosive diarrhea parasite, the situation probably is exactly what it looks like.
Cortland says Taylor Foods is still implicated in the outbreak and that you should still avoid shredded lettuce, not that anyone was going to flock to the bagged salad aisle upon word from the Trump Administration that they made a mistake. I personally believe that humans have a right to uncontaminated food, and that right shouldn’t be for sale to any random MAGA donor who needs a favor. If we take any message home from this whole debacle, let it be that the Trump Administration is inextricably linked to thousands of people having explosive diarrhea and millions more being afraid to eat produce for the foreseeable, all because public health and food safety rank below money and loyalty on this president’s priority list.
In other news…
A Fox News host “joked” about the U.S. military committing mass rapes after Hegseth treats the soldiers with testosterone
We learned that the ICE agent who murdered a man in front of his 3-year-old in Maine this week once threw boiling water at his own wife and child
Andrew Tate, arbiter of alpha masculinity, got arrested in capri pants
Evangelical House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is fundraising for a Texas House candidate who calls children “cum trophies”
The Odyssey had a monster opening weekend and rave reviews after months of Elon Musk meltdowns over a Black woman playing the fictional Helen of Troy, who was literally hatched from an egg in the poem
Trump was brutally booed at the World Cup final, where his team lost