CDC’s outbreak page counts 1,947 people in nine states. Those same nine states are reporting more than fifteen thousand. Every one of these families is in the larger number.
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, Wash., July 30, 2026 — Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, has filed four federal lawsuits in Ohio and Michigan on behalf of five people sickened in the 2026 multistate Cyclosporaoutbreak. The complaints are Ayyad v. Pacific Bells, LLC, No. 1:26-cv-01648 (N.D. Ohio, filed July 16); Caruso v. Taco Bell of America, LLC, No. 1:26-cv-01661 (N.D. Ohio, filed July 17); Hercula v. Taco Bell of America, LLC, No. 2:26-cv-12524 (E.D. Mich., filed July 22); and O’Hara v. Border Foods, LLC, No. 1:26-cv-02183 (W.D. Mich., filed July 28).
Note to reporters — Mr. Marler takes calls on deadline and talks on background whether or not a story concerns these cases, at (206) 794-5043, which reaches him rather than a communications office. The firm’s fifty-state case count, its map and the primary documents behind them are published free and without a paywall, and are listed at the end of this release.
What has not been reported anywhere is what happened when these people tried to get treated. The only recommended therapy for cyclosporiasis is trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, sold as Bactrim, and two of the five plaintiffs cannot take it. Valerie Caruso of Geneva, Ohio is allergic. Kellye O’Hara of Muskegon, Michigan has a documented anaphylactic sulfa allergy. Both were prescribed the second-line drug, nitazoxanide. Ms. O’Hara could not get it: her complaint alleges the medication was on backorder and unavailable at pharmacies in Michigan and several other states, and that she obtained it only after her husband drove roughly seven hours round trip.
Ms. O’Hara is immunocompromised — a uterine cancer survivor who also lives with diabetes, coronary artery disease, sarcoidosis and severe anemia. She ate at the Taco Bell on Colby Road in Whitehall on July 6 and was hospitalized on July 19. Her physicians considered intensive care to desensitize her to the drug she is allergic to, because the alternative could not be found. They have advised that the illness may persist for months and that she may need ongoing immunoglobulin infusion therapy.
The other plaintiffs are Mohammed Ayyad of North Olmsted, Ohio, who tested positive on July 9 and missed roughly two weeks of work, and Karl and Gina Hercula of Clinton Township, Michigan, who ate the same meal and were both sickened.
The cases are being filed against a national count that does not add up. CDC’s outbreak page has said 1,947 cases in nine states and 98 hospitalizations since July 24. CDC’s own surveillance page, updated July 28, reports 6,707 laboratory-confirmed domestically acquired cases across 45 states and 423 hospitalizations. Same agency, same week, both current. One of them counts illness; the other counts having eaten at a Taco Bell.
Adding up what all fifty states publish about themselves, as we have done every day for two weeks, produces a floor above eighteen thousand people. That figure needs a caveat, and it should come from us: a state’s published total counts reported cyclosporiasis, some of it travel-associated, while CDC’s 6,707 is domestic-only. The comparison that survives is narrower. Inside the nine outbreak states, counted the same way on both sides, the states report 15,834 people and CDC’s outbreak count captures 1,947 of them. Roughly eighty-eight percent of the illness in the states the government is investigating sits outside the government’s number.
And the confirmed count was never meant to be read as the illness. Run CDC’s 6,707 through the government’s own foodborne illness burden model and the estimate is 557,352 Americans.
Bill Marler, the firm’s managing partner, said:
Two of my five clients could not take the one drug the CDC recommends, and one of them sent her husband on a seven-hour drive to find the substitute. If a second-line drug for a parasite goes on backorder in the middle of the largest outbreak of that parasite in American history, somebody at FDA should be able to say how many pharmacies are short and what is being done about it.
I have been telling this industry for thirty years to put me out of business, and I mean it. Until somebody publishes the names, samples the water and turns the traceability rule on, I will keep counting, and I will keep giving the count away to anyone who asks for it.
Marler Clark is asking for three things that require no new legislation. Congress should let the Food Traceability Rule take effect rather than holding the enforcement bar until July 20, 2028; its compliance date of January 20, 2026 fell four months before the first illness here. FDA should grant the citizen petition Stop Foodborne Illness filed on February 4, 2026, which would require the agency to name every company associated with an outbreak whether or not a recall follows. And somebody should sample the water in the growing region, which FDA itself recommended in 2013.
Marler Clark has also been retained by more than forty other people in twenty-six states to investigate how they acquired Cyclospora, and expects to file further cases.
Resources for Reporters
Marler Clark publishes the underlying material on this outbreak free and without a paywall, and Mr. Marler will walk a reporter through any of it on background, including the parts that cut against the firm’s own cases:
- A state-by-state case table covering all fifty states, rebuilt daily, with the source and date behind every figure and each state health department’s update schedule alongside it. It is the only fifty-state count anyone publishes, including the federal government.
- A map showing which states received the recalled lettuce, which publish a case count of their own, and the fourteen that publish nothing. Available on request as a publication-resolution file.
- Primary documents obtained through litigation and public records requests, including the unredacted FDA traceback summary from the 2024 romaine outbreak, the records behind the 2021 romaine investigation, and the full argument on outbreak secrecy.
- Outbreak Database, a searchable public record of foodborne outbreaks going back three decades, and Food Safety News, which Mr. Marler founded and funds.
- Background on the science reporters keep having to explain: why washing and chlorine do not remove Cyclospora, why whole genome sequencing cannot link this parasite to a product the way it links E. coliand Listeria, why a routine ova-and-parasite exam misses it, and why it can take six weeks to know whether a sick person belongs to an outbreak.
Marler Clark represents plaintiffs in this outbreak and says so plainly. The count, the map and the documents are published regardless of whom they help, and were published before any of these complaints were filed.
About Marler Clark
Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, is the nation’s leading law firm representing victims of foodborne illness. Since 1993, when William Marler represented Brianne Kiner in the Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak, the firm has represented more than 10,000 people and recovered more than $850 million on their behalf, in cases arising from nearly every major foodborne illness outbreak in the United States.
Mr. Marler’s work outside the courtroom has reached the rules themselves, from the 1994 declaration of E. coliO157:H7 as an adulterant in ground beef through the addition of six more Shiga toxin-producing serotypes on his firm’s petition, and the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011. He has since petitioned FSIS to treat Salmonella as an adulterant. He testifies before Congress, teaches food safety at institutions including the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, founded Food Safety News in 2009, and has personally funded and written more than 5,000 posts on Marler Blog since 2004. His work on the Jack in the Box outbreak is the basis of Jeff Benedict’s book Poisoned and the Emmy Award-winning Netflix documentary. More at billmarler.com.
Media Contact
William D. Marler, Managing Partner
Marler Clark, Inc., PS
180 Olympic Drive S.E., Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
(206) 346-1888 direct · 1-800-884-9840
marlerclark.com · billmarler.com · marlerblog.com
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