Michigan has logged more than 300 cases of a parasitic infection since June 22. The state typically sees about 50 cases in an entire year.
The parasite is called Cyclospora. It spreads through raw produce and water contaminated with human feces. And it's now been detected in 17 states.
The Centers for Disease Control confirmed 145 cases across the country as of its latest count, but individual state tallies suggest the real number is significantly higher. New York reported 107 cases since May 1 — on pace with its typical annual range of 500 to 700 — while the New York City Health Department said cases from January through June roughly doubled compared to the same period in 2025. Michigan's explosion past 300 cases dwarfs its usual annual total by a factor of six, according to the Michigan Health Department.
Cyclosporiasis, is about as unpleasant as anything you'd want to avoid at a summer cookout. The CDC describes the symptoms as "watery diarrhea with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements." If that doesn't ruin your appetite, the agency adds that patients also experience "cramps, nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite, low-grade fever and vomiting." The infection is treated with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, sold under the brand name Bactrim.
Cases have continued climbing in states as geographically scattered as Alaska, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin. That's not a regional cluster. That's a distribution map that looks like a national produce supply chain.
Which is exactly what this comes down to. Cyclospora doesn't spread person to person. It spreads when food or water comes into contact with infected human feces — which means somewhere between the farm and your kitchen counter, sanitation failed. Multiple states health departments are tracking the surge, but no one has identified a specific contaminated product.
That's the part that should concern you. We're past 300 cases in a single state, the CDC's own numbers are running behind state-level counts, and nobody can tell you which bag of spinach to throw away. The standard public health advice is to wash your produce thoroughly, which is reasonable — and also what people were presumably already doing before they got sick.
