Short Stuff: Cyclospora

Guarantee human.

I survived nine months in captivity,

and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the survivor files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with the Elizabeth Smart on the eye-heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a bookshelf and you're for you page

“or equally important to your personality, welcome home.”

Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture,

with your favorite writers, booktop creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm so excited. So I'm so excited. Listen to Pro Society on the eye-heart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. [music playing] Hey, welcome to the short step on Josh. There's chapters you're sitting in for Dave. So this is a short step. Let's go.

That's right. Today, we're talking about the recent cyclo sporeases outbreak that everyone heard about, notably with like tainted lettuce usually, is what you were hearing on the news.

“And Taco Bell was in the news because it turns out”

that the supplier that they used was, seems to have been ground zero for this outbreak, but we're going to explain what cyclo spora is all about. Yeah, it's this outbreak as of August 13th, which was the latest data we could find.

It's August 20th now, so this is all. Okay.

It's 28,056 people have been second with cyclo.

I'm going with cyclo sporiasis. It sounded like you gave the British pronunciation. Boreiasis, yes. Yeah, it's certainly sounded like you had tea in your hand. Yeah.

So 28,000 plus people have been second. Two people have died. And just a month before, it was at 9,481 cases. And you're like, wow, that's a lot of people, and it is. This is actually the third biggest foodborne outbreak in US history.

From what anyone can tell, it's the biggest cyclo spora outbreak in human history. And even with those eye popping stats associated with it, that 28,000 case number is probably just a fraction of the actual number of cases of people who have gotten second by with cyclo sporiasis. Yeah, for sure.

I think there are only 38 states reporting. The, you know, as far as reporting goes, it's like people who went to the hospital. And a lot of people just like wrote it out, I'm sure.

“And then even at the hospital, you have to have a special test to see if it's actually that.”

And not all the hospitals probably did that test. So they probably just treated people for dehydration and diarrhea. So it's, it's a much bigger number than that. And let's talk about what this thing is because it is a not a plant. It's not a fungus or an animal.

It's not a bacteria or a virus. It is a protozoan. And it's a parasite. And the human is the host. Yeah.

And it's not brand new. But the reason we can pretty confidently say that in all of human history,

this is the biggest outbreak of cyclists for ISIS is because the first case that anyone's ever documented was in like

1978 in Papua, New Guinea. And it's even newer here in the United States. The first outbreak was in 1995, right? Yeah, in Chicago, only 23 cases. Then there was one in Florida the next year about 45 cases.

Those were raspberries from Guatemala. And every summer, basically, there was a little something. But nothing like we saw this year. You know, the stuff can live. This protozoan can live in rivers.

It lives in water. Drinking water, rivers, lakes, swimming pools. And it likes to hide in like berries and leafy vegetables. Because there's lots of little crevices and nooks and crannies where it won't get washed out. Even if you're like rinsing your stuff.

Also unnives and utensils and also from unwashed hands. Grups. Very good. And just let's be clear. It passes through human sewage.

That's, that's its mode of transportation, right? So that means that somebody had human poop on their knife or their hands. If that's where you got it. Yeah. So we should talk about the life cycle because it begins when it enters your mouth.

It is, and what's, early a stage, it's an infectious o-o cyst.

That's the British way of pronouncing it. I'm going with oos cyst. It is oos cyst. Actually look that up.

And it is an egg that basically protects it from the outside world until it gets into the human system,

where it latches onto your gut and starts a 14-stage life cycle, which takes two days to two weeks to incubate before it becomes an infection.

“Yeah, and the reason it takes along is because that oos cyst, is that what you said?”

Yeah, with emphasis on the first oo. Oos cyst. Oh, cyst. Yeah. I like oos cyst.

It's very tough. It's like a tough container. Like you said that protects the actual infectious part. And it has to break down. And it's evolved to break down in the human gut.

Thanks to your digestive juices and your bile. And the temperature of your body inside your gut. All those things come together and break that oos cyst down. And now all of a sudden four sausage-shaped sporelets get dumped out into your gut and start going to work. Essentially making it really hard for your gut to absorb water.

And because your body's trying to poop to stuff out, you have water, but like you have never had it before.

That's right. And every time you do poop, you pass along up to 10,000 oos cyst per cubic centimeter of feces. That's a lot. Oh, we gooey feces, it says. Should we take a break?

Yeah. All right, we'll be right back. We've learned things when you're getting charged. Stop your shit now. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

I survived and I spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the survivor files.

“You just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up, don't say anything.”

Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

There's stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a bookshelf and you're for you, page or equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club,

part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride in prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed.

So it's us. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. So if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, and that is of Trojan Horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.

Listen to Pro's Society on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. [Music] Alright, so we're back. You said the main symptom is really, really bad diarrhea, which obviously was going to lead to bad dehydration,

like dangerous dehydration, and electrolyte imbalances, potential kidney damage risk, maybe hospitalization as we've seen up to 10% body weight weight loss. That's a lot depending on who you are, but that's a lot no matter what, because it's 10% of whoever you are. Yeah, what's interesting is there's not the inflammation or fever that's usually associated with a stomach bug.

“It's just a lot of pooping, and the risk of really bad dehydration, and all the stuff that comes with that, right?”

The right. So once you poop that stuff out, it makes it back into the water supply.

And that's probably what happened.

The water supply was used on food crops, where really, if you step back and think about it for even a second, it shouldn't be.

But let's talk about Chuck Y. This US outbreak in 2026 is the biggest one, the biggest cyclist for ISIS outbreak in human history. Yeah, well, one is a climate change, you know, with rising temperatures across the globe. These, you know, I don't think we mentioned that this thing used to be found only in the tropics. Right. But now these pathogens can be found elsewhere because of rising temps.

The second one, and, you know, we're not getting political, but this is just a stone cold fact.

“This presidential administration is cut funding for food safety programs, including two key ones that might have stopped this, the food emergency response network.”

They grant states funding to test for food pathogens like this, and food net, which tracks outbreak causing pathogens.

And food net specifically, literally because of a lack of funding, stopped tracking six of the eight pathogens that it used to always track, and cyclist for it is one of those.

Yep. So, you know, that's just the deal. Plus, the federal agencies that are responsible for basically taking the lead in guiding healthcare providers and public health officials and all that stuff throughout the country, just sat on their their hands for months, as a matter of fact, it was about two full months before the CDC step forward with guidelines. And essentially basically really started talking about this publicly.

In the meantime, this outbreak was bad enough that somebody had to do something. So Michigan ended up stepping forward and filling the role that the CDC was just dropping the ball on. And they ended up issuing guidelines and stuff that obviously weren't, you know, regulations or anything, but that other healthcare providers and other states were like, okay, good. Now I know what to do. Thanks to the state of Michigan, not the federal government, which is supposed to do.

And if you put all that together, you're like, wow, this happened really fast. And to me, it gives a picture of like the United States built a really impressive foodborne illness surveillance network. That that was fragile, apparently, but that really worked because if you just pull that stuff away and then this is the stuff that happens.

“I think there's 20 foodborne outbreaks right now going on in the United States.”

Yeah, it's it's in a way. It's really impressive how effective it was before. Yeah, for sure. And boy, hats off to you, Michiganers, for taking the lead on that, one of the other big reasons is big agriculture when it's, you know, something like that has been consolidated so much.

And industry has, that means that, you know, Americans are getting their their crops from just, you know, the same place is basically.

So if something like this happens, like happened at Taylor Farms, this was Taylor Farms to Mexico, which was the agricultural site, even though it's a California-based company, all was said, and this stuff's going out all over the country. There's also a, Taylor Farms is also being identified as a source of the other outbreaks, a couple of them, the San Manila outbreak, at least from jalapenos, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

And for those who don't speak Spanish, Taylor Farms, the Mexico means Taylor Farms of Mexico. And it's not just Mexico or Guatemala, where you're going to fine-tain a produce, something I was kind of alluding to earlier, is that the cyclosporifying, it's way, finds its way to your food crops through human sewage.

“And that can actually happen in the United States because there are, let me find it, more than half, I think 27 states allow for treated sewage water to be used.”

To irrigate food crops, I did not know that. I didn't either, nine states don't have any policy, four have guidelines, and 14 states allow it for crops, but not food crops. Yeah. And, you know, yeah, that's where it's coming from. Yes.

So they, and we did say treated sewage waste, of course, right? So it's not like they're just spraying like feces all over your lettuce, but essentially on a microscopic level, they often are because a lot of sewage treatment plants aren't set up to handle cyclosporah. Because again, this is not your average bacteria or virus, this is its own thing. So the auto sites, cysts can make it through onto your lettuce, whatever, and then also sometimes those bacteria and the viruses that the sewage treatment plant is set up to take care of, make it through anyway.

Yeah, and maybe fund the agencies that are responsible for keeping track of the stuff would be awesome.

Sure. Yeah.

“So if you feel at all like you should go to the hospital, if you have cyclosporah spriuses right now, or if you have really bad water, but for any reason, just go, like don't risk it, whatever.”

But if you don't want to get cyclosporias, there are some steps you can take. One of them is that the very least wash off all your stuff because that can help, but cyclosporias can still hide, right, Chuck?

Yeah, I mean, we talked in act one about the little mux and crannies, and it's, you know, hard to get do sometimes.

The only thing to like kill it is to cook it to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, but you're not cooking your lettuce for your taco. No, that's great.

“That's like the mom and better off dead who boiled the bacon.”

Yeah, that was really silly part of that, maybe that whole mom's scene.

Yeah. Stuff that's, you know, like stuff that has a nice wrapper around it, like a banana and avocado, you're doing okay. And you know, do plenty of hand washing, obviously, as well. For sure. And if you are on the verge of already started an email telling us how you used to like this before we became political, just stop, don't bother.

Sure stuff stuff.

“Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.”

For more podcasts to my heart radio visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.