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The cyclospora outbreak is growing. Authorities have tracked 17,000 cases of the parasite that causes intestinal illness. Many blame contaminated iceberg lettuce from Mexico. The Food and Drug Administration has also told consumers of recalls on eggs, alfalfa sprouts and jalapenos because of salmonella or E. coli. NPR's Yuki Noguchi spoke with an analyst for whom this story is personal.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: In 1993, Darin Detwiler's 16-month-old son contracted an E. coli infection from another toddler who'd eaten tainted, recalled hamburger meat from a Jack in the Box near Seattle.
DARIN DETWILER: It sickened over 750 people. It sent about 175, mostly children, to the hospital. And it killed four children. And the last child that died was my son.
NOGUCHI: Detwiler turned his grief into a career improving food safety as a government adviser, a professor at Northeastern University and a food industry consultant. The Trump administration pared back various sources of food safety funding. So Detwiler says there are few reliable measures of food safety. The number of recalls alone doesn't tell the whole story, but Detwiler has tried to quantify the impact of those recalls.
DETWILER: When you start giving dimension to a recall - you know, the quantity, the scope, the scale, the severity, that kind of stuff - our research has shown that that is increasing.
NOGUCHI: Risks are increasing, he says, largely because of consolidation in food production and processing. Giant farming, distribution and processing operations mean a batch of tainted jalapenos, for example, might quickly make its way into salsa, restaurant chains and grocery shelves. Usually, food has already reached consumers by the time tests come back positive, hence the need for recalls. Sandy Eskin is CEO of the advocacy group Stop Foodborne Illness. Cyclospora, she says, caught consumers' attention.
SANDRA ESKIN: It's off the charts. I don't think we've ever had an outbreak with this many illnesses.
NOGUCHI: So more people, she says, are now paying very close attention to recalls.
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