America’s “explosive diarrhea” trend keeps gaining momentum as suspected cases of Cyclospora parasite infection climb up toward 7,000 across the nation. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has acknowledged 1,644 confirmed domestic cases as of this Wednesday—with at least 5,100 more cases still allegedly requiring further analysis before they can be classified as domestic. Thanks to the former leader of the CDC lab tasked with investigating outbreaks of Cyclospora, however, we now know what the holdup is. Billionaire Trump-enabler Elon Musk’s “government efficiency” squad DOGE downsized the lab from 11 members down to just three last year, as the former lead for the CDC’s domestic surveillance team covering parasitic diseases and malaria, Joel Barratt, told Nature this week. “The outbreak won’t stop any time soon, until public-health agencies are able to pinpoint exactly where the parasite is entering our food system,” according to Barratt, who left the agency voluntarily ten months ago.
But, as you might imagine given this CDC’s domestic surveillance team’s full purview, downsizing this lab to just three people carries much higher risks than a mere summer of miserable bowel movements, which have currently caused no recorded fatalities.
