Mixed messages

Then things changed over the weekend. First, on Saturday, the FDA announced that a sample of Taylor Farms lettuce tested positive for Cyclospora. The result confirmed the traceback investigation findings—and also potentially extended the list of contaminated products. But, then on Sunday, the FDA deleted the information from its website, explaining that on further review, the result was a false positive.

In a press briefing Monday, FDA officials explained that the test result was from lettuce sampled at the border that was not included in Taylor Farms’ recall. Given that new illnesses are still being reported and the tested lettuce was not part of the outbreak recall, the FDA rushed to publicly disclose the information in hopes of preventing more illnesses, the officials said. But, upon further testing, it became clear that the genetic test for the parasite had returned a false result. Officials would not go into detail on what caused the faulty result, but contamination is a common source of false positives.

Meanwhile Taylor Farms seemed to celebrate the rescinded test result over the weekend, sparking confusion.

“Today, FDA apologized to us,” Taylor Farms wrote at the start of a statement Sunday.

“Today, we were informed that FDA made a mistake, and this was a false positive. To be clear, at this moment, FDA has not identified a single positive product test result for Cyclospora,” the statement read (emphasis theirs).

This response was followed by headlines that suggested the FDA may have blamed Taylor Farms in error. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, reported the FDA “walked back” an earlier detection, to which the FDA directly responded.

“To clarify, this false-positive lab sample DOES NOT change the basis for FDA’s ongoing outbreak investigation or the overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms,” the agency said on social media.