Former FDA commissioner on cyclospora outbreak and rise in measles infections
(CBS, KYMA) - Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA Commissioner, spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the cyclospora outbreak.
According to Brennan, there is cyclospora outbreaks in nine states, and it is now one of the nation's largest foodborne illness outbreaks, with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying it's under control, prompting her to ask Dr. Gottlieb if he think it is, to which he said:
"I don't think it's under control yet, per se. I think that they've done a good job, FDA has, isolating this to central Mexico and some specific farms as well. It appears that a lot of these cases are emanating from farms in central Mexico, and there was probably some kind of event there. Remember, this particular parasite-the only known reservoir for it is human fecal matter, so probably sewage got onto those growing fields in central Mexico and contaminated those crops. Nobody's sure how yet. And so by isolating it to that region, a lot of restaurants, a lot of wholesalers, retailers have been able to cut off supplies from central Mexico, and I think that mitigates the risk. I don't think this is fully under control yet because we don't know for sure that that's the only growing region where this is coming from. But it does seem to be the case at this point. Some of the cases that are being reported right now probably are cases happening from other parts of the world and other parts of the country that are normal background cases that you see. There's probably increased reporting, but clearly the bulk of these cases appear to be coming from that central Mexican region. It's worth noting that Mexican authorities, public health authorities, deny that they're responsible for this."
As a result of the outbreak, Brennan said Gottlieb recommended people buy heads of lettuce, not pre-chopped bags, and buy locally and not from the grocery store, leading her to ask why Americans are not hearing more from current FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas on that kind of advice, and Gottlieb said:
"I think that there is some challenges with communications from the FDA. I think FDA has done a good job isolating this, and they were fast to do this. This is a hard pathogen to detect. There's no really good test for it, so you can't test for it in food. But there hasn't been as much communication from the agency as you might expect. There are things that consumers can do. You can buy a whole head of lettuce, like you said, and chop it up rather than buying bag lettuce. There's higher risk with bag lettuce. You can source locally. There haven't been known outbreaks from locally sourced produce. Prior to 2016, 2017, we never saw this particular species in U.S. sourced produce. It started to appear in California produce, but certainly in lower levels than what you see in Mexico and South America. There is a weather component here."
During the interview, Brennan and Gottlieb talked about the rise of measles infections, with the American Academy of Pediatrics warning it is America's children who are going to pay the price for it.
When asked if Americans, at any point, expect the Trump Administration to lead a national campaign to get kids vaccinated against measles, or if it died with their Make America Healthy Again campaign, Gottlieb said:
"I think we need to accept that measles elimination is no longer the policy of this administration or certainly Secretary Kennedy, and I wouldn't expect any kind of concerted effort so long as he is in that position. This is his stated policy to, in some cases, discourage vaccination, but certainly not encourage it. And the children who aren't getting vaccinated right now are babies. Once they age into settings where they can contract that disease, kindergarten, preschool, daycare, you're going to see cases continue to rise in this country. It's not going to go down; it's going to continue to go up. Look at flu, for example. We had a record number of pediatric flu deaths last year, 298 pediatric flu deaths. We have almost 200 this year, and the secretary has said children don't need to get vaccinated for flu. So this is across the board; it's not just measles. These infections are very serious. There's a lot of long-term sequelae, even if you survive the infection."
To watch more of Brennan's interview with Gottlieb, click here.
