By Megan R. Wilson

In today’s issue:

• Federal investigators are heading to Mexico to inspect facilities linked to the massive cyclospora outbreak as questions remain about how it’s spreading
• Exclusive: Watchdog group urges inspector general to investigate conflict-of-interest concerns among members of a federal advisory committee that recently recommended easing restrictions on peptides

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Taylor Farms boxes are loaded on a field in the town of Doctor Mora, on the central state of Guanajuato, Mexico. (Guillermo Arias/AP)

The Food and Drug Administration has begun inspecting the Mexico facilities linked to the country’s largest-known cyclospora outbreak — nearly a month after federal officials publicly connected Taylor Farms’ shredded lettuce to the illnesses, report Rachel Roubein, Lena H. Sun and Caitlin Gilbert from The Post’s newsroom.

The timing of the investigation is raising questions about how quickly food regulators need to get to the source of an outbreak when the evidence may already be gone.

This cyclospora outbreak linked to Taylor Farms has sickened nearly 10,000 people in 17 states. The illness, caused by a parasite, generally transmitted when infected human feces contaminates food or water.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FDA are also investigating other outbreaks and illnesses of cyclosporiasis unrelated to this outbreak, with thousands of additional cases reported across the country. But federal investigators haven’t yet identified which products could be causing it.

The FDA says it wasn’t simply sitting on the investigation. Cyclospora has a long incubation period, meaning the lettuce that made people sick likely was grown and harvested weeks before the first illnesses were detected.

Donald Prater, the FDA’s acting deputy commissioner for food, told The Post in an interview that the agency spent time reconstructing how the lettuce was grown and when. This includes utilizing historical weather patterns and satellite imagery, and gathering information to trace the product back to its source before sending investigators into the field.

“If you just go out the door to do an investigation without having this information, without having the knowledge of where were the products actually likely grown, then you could actually not use your resources as effectively as you could,” Prater said.

But there’s an obvious trade-off involved with the strategy. The longer investigators wait, the harder it can be to determine what actually caused contamination, according to food-safety experts and former FDA officials. They told my colleagues that the agency should have been on the ground sooner.

Taylor Farms said it suspended all production at that facility on July 18. At least 3.1 million pounds of lettuce linked to the farm have been recalled, compared to the largest prior cyclospora recall of nearly 31,000 pounds of parsley last September, according to an analysis of FDA enforcement data by The Post.

The scale of the recall underscores the challenge: The FDA records show 236,192 cases of products — from shredded lettuce to salad mixes — moved through multiple retailers, restaurants and distributors. It’s made all the more difficult thanks to the suspected source being in another country.

In July, Mexican authorities inspected Taylor Farms’ processing facility and found no cyclospora in lettuce or water samples, according to the Mexican government. The company says its own testing of about 2,000 samples also found nothing. FDA officials caution that the parasite is exceptionally difficult to detect and can be unevenly distributed through a large batch.

The United States and Mexico have had a formal produce safety partnership since 2014, but investigators still haven’t identified how the lettuce became contaminated.

What to watch: “This is one of the areas where we really do have a need to advance much faster and research far more, as it continues to be something that we face every summer,” said Steven Mandernach, the executive director of the nonprofit Association of Food and Drug Officials, and who led the investigation of two cyclospora outbreaks as an Iowa food safety state official.

Read the full story: “FDA travels to Mexico a month after linking Taylor Farms to cyclospora outbreak.”

A watchdog group is asking the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate potential conflicts of interest among members of a federal advisory panel that recently recommended easing restrictions on several peptides.

The Campaign Legal Center on Thursday wrote a letter to HHS inspector general T. March Bell, asking the office to investigate whether seven members of the FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee violated federal ethics laws by participating in last month’s meeting without recusing themselves or obtaining ethics waivers.

It’s a contrast, the group points out, from a 2024 meeting of the same advisory committee, when the FDA issued waivers to three members whose financial interests could have been affected by the proceedings.

→ The complaint, shared first with Health Brief, follows reporting by my WaPo colleague Rachel Roubein that FDA officials had expressed concerns about appointing those who worked for peptide-related businesses and clinics due to potential conflicts of interest. Meanwhile, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has promised to end the “war on peptides.”

FDA spokesperson Benjamin Nichols defended the panelists at the time, saying that the committee members underwent an ethics review and vetting process required of anyone picked for an advisory committee.

“Candidates that could not meet existing ethics requirements were removed from consideration,” Nichols told Rachel. “FDA is committed to robust, transparent discussions about the products it regulates to ensure Americans can make informed decisions about their health.”

Nichols didn’t respond to a request for comment about the Campaign Legal Center complaint.

The backdrop: The set of advisory committee meetings last month focused on seven peptides, including BPC-157, TB-500 and MOTS-C. The committee ultimately recommended easing restrictions on nearly all of the substances, a move that could open the door to a larger market for the products.

The Campaign Legal Center points to seven panelists it said had financial or professional ties to companies and practices involved in peptide and pharmaceutical or compounding, which are likely directly impacted by the panel’s recommendations.

That includes one member who founded a longevity practice that advertises peptides including BPC-157 and TB-500, and another who served as the scientific director of Maximus Health — an online pharmacy that sells peptides and had published articles about the FDA panel and BPC-157 before the meeting.

“Per long-standing law enforcement policy, HHS-OIG can neither confirm nor deny whether we are or are not conducting a particular investigation,” a spokesperson for the inspector general’s office said when asked about the complaint.

Thought bubble: The HHS OIG said in its most recent report to Congress that it processed more than 40,000 tips from October 2025 through March 2026, underscoring how much competition there is for investigators’ attention.

→ Before the meeting, FDA career scientists had said there wasn’t enough evidence to support expanding access to the peptides under review, according to reporting from Rachel and Lauren Weber.

“Department of Defense will offer reimbursements for egg and sperm freezing,” The Post’s Stella Canino-Quiñones reports.

“Ebola Is Driving Up Maternal Deaths as Pregnant Women in Congo Avoid Hospitals,” Bloomberg’s Jason Gale reports.

“Hospital Prepayment Requirements Add New Wrinkles to Patients’ Financial Responsibility,” Julie Appleby writes for KFF Health News.

“How investors killed AstraZeneca’s $400bn megadeal,” report Oliver Barnes, James Fontanella-Khan, Patrick Temple-West, Aaron Kirchfeld, Aanu Adeoye and Emma Dunkley at the Financial Times.

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