July 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Sunday that laboratory experts re-checked lettuce sample results from Taylor Farms in an investigation into an outbreak of the cyclospora parasite and concluded the finding should be considered a false positive. As of Sunday, there were no confirmed positive sample results for cyclospora, the FDA added.
The FDA on Saturday had said that a sample of shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms tested positive for the parasitic illness that has sickened thousands of people in the U.S.
A spokesperson for Taylor Fresh Foods told Reuters that the company was informed the FDA made a mistake.
Taco Bell is the one who identified one of their lettuce suppliers as a source of infection. (There are likely other sources, as some of the infected do not eat at Taco Bell.) Taco Bell then announced the issue (but did not name the supplier), pulled all lettuce from that supplier from stores and warehouses, plus anything else they thought might be questionable. They seem to be being very responsible here. (Admittedly, there was a long initial delay, but they were probably expecting government agencies to still be functional and doing their jobs.)
In many scientific tests, you need to chose between false positives and false negatives. The way to run infection tests like this is to choose for false positives: if a sample is negative, you can be sure that it’s negative and you can ignore it. If it tests positive, you can re-run the tests with other criteria and confirm or deny the original results.
It seems like the regime, tired of being blamed for not figuring this out, got a false positive and made the announcement before re-testing was complete. And now Taylor Farms (which has been involved in multiple other past infections) is saying that it wasn’t them, almost certainly because they’ve lost business, and the FDA is being forced to back them up on that.
I’ll also add that it’s been, what? two months since this started? It’s possible that Taylor Farms cracked down on their produce and farming practices, and that the samples provided to FDA are genuinely clean and we may never get a definitive answer; that’s happened before in other outbreaks. It’s extremely unusual for there to be no definitive answer in an outbreak that’s lasted this long - but then again, we used to have a functioning government.
Bury the evidence, claim innocence, pay off the government, manipulate media, boom. Taco Bell ends up taking the biggest hit for acting responsibly while those caught screwing up bury the body in the Reflecting Pool, which is probably the most annoying part.
Taylor Farms is a “subsidiary” of Taylor Fresh Foods. A private Delaware corporation with HQ in California. Backed by Venture Capital, and has processing facilities all over North America.
Paper news doesn’t seem to have it, but video news (CNN or MSNBC or something) at one point had a reporter verbal blurb that Taylor released a statement stating “a processing facility in Mexico was traced to be the source,” with a vague mention that their “parent company” said that (Taylor Fresh Foods) - this was a few days ago.
It was an interesting press release, because it feigned blame to Mexico, and that the mysterious parent company" was taking care of the problem and the brand “Taylor Farms” is obviously just a victim. Companies often use cable news for these opinion-shift events, fairly commonplace and one more reason to never watch cable news seriously. This one was an extra level of vague misdirection. (Not tinfoil hat statement, just observation, they could have sounded quite genuine and it still would have had the same effect.)
So Taylor Farms is Taylor Fresh Foods, the parent company is…them, and guess what? Mexico is one of the countries they have processing facilities in! (Don’t have time to re-grab sources but it’s all public info about the company.) Anecdotal occam’s razor, a facility in Mexico tainted a lettuce shredder, didn’t catch it, some lettuce got out as what happens, and instead of doing the usual needful cleanup, they are trying to cover it up.
It’s interesting and disturbing getting to experience this level of cover-up in real-time. Especially given that these things happen, and it’s just the cost of doing business when you screw up. Instead, all this narrative-shifting instead.
Like even the wiki pre- and post-edit is trying their darndest to taint the story.
Check out the “Food Safety Recalls” -> “Food Safety, and Recalls” section transition…
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taylor_Farms&oldid=1362115029
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taylor_Farms&oldid=1365158208
It seems far more likely that Taylor Farms just gave Trump another little donation so he would tell the FDA to say that it was a false positive.
Ah, yeah I mean in food cases like this it’s pretty serious and should be taken as such, people get really sick, I guess I just wouldn’t put it past them to do something like that because it’s kind of what they do. I am very concerned about our food supply, food inspectors, food growers, water supply and all of that I just make jokes because I am unhappy in this consumerist hellhole we made