SerpApi.Org
The Trump administration is trying to convince America that a visit by Taylor Farms executives to President Donald Trump had nothing to do with the FDA walking back its claim that the explosive diarrhea outbreak spreading through the country is caused by Taylor Farms lettuce.
On July 16, the FDA declared that it had found traces of Cyclospora on lettuce from Taylor Farms and warned Americans to be wary of the company’s veggies. That same day, executives of Taylor Farms met with the president. The White House and FDA officials said the meeting was to discuss “shortfalls in the FDA’s and CDC’s outbreak response process.”
The next day, July 17, Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall of lettuce sourced from Mexico that may have been linked to the outbreak.
But on Sunday, July 19, Taylor Farms announced in a now-deleted X post that the FDA apologized for linking the company to the Cyclospora outbreak, and that the test it used to base their earlier conclusion was a “false positive.”
“Yesterday, FDA informed Taylor Fresh Foods that one of its iceberg lettuce products from central Mexico tested positive for cyclospora. Today, we were informed that FDA made a mistake, and this was a false positive,” the statement said.
The stunning reversal led to suspicion that Taylor Farms had bribed the Trump administration to walk back its claim tying the company’s lettuce to the outbreak. This intensified after it was discovered that Taylor Farms donated $1 million to a Trump super PAC in March of 2025, days after the FDA delayed the implementation of a food traceability rule that would have added more regulations to food businesses.
On July 20, the HHS took a Trumpian approach to assuring the public that there was no collusion between Taylor Farms and Trump. Quoting a post by left-leaning outlet MeidasTouch drawing a connection between Taylor Farms and Trump, the HHS Rapid Response X account wrote, “This is how the FAKE NEWS works: imply collusion, ignore the facts. Nothing influences our decisions except science and the safety of the American people.”
The FDA gave a more measured response. In a July 20 post, the FDA reiterated that the evidence still supported Taylor Farms recalling its lettuce.
“To clarify, this false-positive lab sample DOES NOT change the basis for FDA’s ongoing outbreak investigation or the overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms,” the agency wrote.
“Over the weekend, FDA alerted Taylor Farms that a new sample of shredded lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico tested positive for Cyclospora during import examination at the Southern Border. This ended up being a false positive, and Taylor Farms was alerted to the corrective test result Sunday,” it continued. “FDA’s traceback investigation and outbreak data continue to converge on shredded iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms locations in central Mexico… We encourage the public to continue to avoid all products listed in Taylor Farms’ voluntary recall.”
