The federal Food and Drug Administration is retracting a claim that prompted a recall of lettuce mistakenly linked to an outbreak of the diarrhea-causing cyclospora parasite.
In a statement Sunday, the agency said a “false positive” during lab testing led it to warn people not to eat shredded lettuce at Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.
Taylor Fresh Foods, of Salinas, California, said last week the FDA had linked the lettuce to “a specific independent farm” affiliated with the company, causing it to voluntarily recall lettuce in the five-state area. Taylor Farms has a distribution warehouse in Colorado Springs.
The FDA now says its finding was in error, citing “the complexity in detection of Cyclospora,” and that Taylor Farms could not be linked to the outbreak.
“There are no confirmed positive sample results for product testing for Cyclospora,” the FDA said, adding that the agency and its state partners are continuing to collect and analyze product samples to find the source of the outbreak.
Despite the retraction, the FDA said it is working with Taylor Farms “to ensure that lettuce implicated in this outbreak has been removed from the market.”
Taylor Farms previously said last week’s voluntary recall in the U.S. included all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico.
The company has been tied to foodborne outbreaks in the past, including a 2013 cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to salad mix and a 2024 E. coli outbreak tied to onions served at McDonald’s that killed one person in Mesa County and sickened at least 25 others in Colorado.
Taco Bell on Friday said it also took “immediate action to voluntarily remove potentially impacted lettuce from a supplier in select states” and replace the produce within 24 hours.
The CDC, FDA and public health officials in several states continue to investigate a multistate outbreak of cyclospora infections.
The illness is not usually life threatening and is typically treated with antibiotics.