Food producer Taylor Farms released a statement on the Cyclospora outbreak Friday, confirming that it’s “voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the US market.” Reuters reports that, according to a source, Taylor Farms told customers like Yum Brands owner Taco Bell and the food distributor Sysco on Thursday to pull shredded lettuce that had been produced initially as 5-pound bags at a facility in Guanajuato, Mexico, from distribution.

Taco Bell said on Thursday that “The affected ingredient from our supplier is being indefinitely removed from our supply chain nationwide and will be replaced within 24 hours in select states.”

The Cyclospora parasite infects humans’ small intestine, can take up to one to two weeks to incubate, and causes symptoms including “watery diarrhea, with frequent bowel movements… vomiting, body aches, headache, low-grade fever, and other flu-like symptoms,” that may seem to go away and then come back more than once.

As The Verge reported this week, not all of the reported cases have been linked to Taco Bell, and Taylor Farms is a giant, which has said it sells more than $7 billion in produce every year and makes two out of every five of the salad kits sold in grocery stores. However, its name doesn’t appear on most of those items, and while the extent of the outbreak is still under investigation, the CDC has said it’s also looking into illnesses and outbreaks in other states that are unrelated.

Based on information provided yesterday by the FDA, Taylor Farms de Mexico is voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market.

While the FDA traceback is indicating a specific independent farm that represents less than 1% of the U.S.’s iceberg lettuce supply as the potential source of the outbreak, we have removed all iceberg lettuce from the region indefinitely.

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It hasn’t identified other companies or products to avoid yet. ProPublica’s Annie Waldman reports that the tracing effort is working without more than 240 consumer safety specialists who left as the Trump administration cut funding to federal health agencies, and the CDC scaled back its Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) that worked with 10 states.

The Washington Post also mentions that a few months ago, the FDA pushed back the compliance deadline on implementing its Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods (Food Traceability Final Rule) from January 20th, 2026, until July 20th, 2028. Its requirement for standardized record-keeping about goods and shipments could’ve made finding the “specific independent farm” tied to the outbreak easier and faster.

This all follows statements from the CDC and FDA saying the “explosive diarrhea parasite” outbreak has been linked to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell locations across five states: Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. In Michigan alone, there are over 5,000 reported cases, with 102 reports of hospitalization.

According to the FDA, “FDA and state partners are actively investigating the source and scope of the contamination. Because the investigation remains ongoing, additional implicated brands, restaurants, retailers, or distribution channels may be identified as the investigation continues.”

Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.

IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:

– IBM sends ‘shockwave’ through tech industry with AI warning

– Dimon urges calm over fear about AI’s impact on jobs: ‘Stop being breathless over it’

– AI is changing modern dating, but experts warn it’s making people ‘relationally stupid’

MARKET JOLT: Shares of IBM were down more than 23% when the market opened on Tuesday, raising fresh questions about whether companies are seeing enough near-term returns from artificial intelligence spending.

COOL DOWN: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday said there is still a lot of uncertainty over how AI will impact the workforce and people shouldn’t be “breathless” in their concerns as new technologies have historically created new jobs.

PLUG PULLED: New York’s decision to pause the construction of large artificial intelligence data centers is drawing criticism from some lawmakers and energy officials, who argue the move could weaken the United States’ ability to compete in the global AI race while encouraging investment to move elsewhere.

RARE PRAISE: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., praised the late Sen. Lindsey Graham for backing legislation that would allow victims of nonconsensual AI-generated deepfake pornography to file civil lawsuits.

‘RELATIONALLY STUPID’: Artificial intelligence has seeped into almost every aspect of modern life, helping users plan vacations, create workout routines and tackle countless everyday tasks. Some have resorted to using it for their love lives by asking chatbots to help them write witty responses to messages, craft dating app profiles and work out relationship issues. However, relationship experts fear that the increased use of AI in dating could lead to disastrous results.

DIGITAL AXE: A group of 26 Meta employees sued the tech giant over accusations that it used AI-powered software to choose people for mass layoffs, disproportionately targeting workers with disabilities or those who took medical, parental or family leave.

LOCAL LIFT: Meta is expanding its massive data center project in Richland Parish, Louisiana, to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, making it one of the largest data centers in history, the company announced Monday.

ACCOUNT CONTROL: There are few emails that make your stomach drop faster than one about “new privacy settings.” That usually means a company has moved another data switch, renamed a control or tucked a new choice inside an account menu you rarely visit. Google is now rolling out one of those changes for Search services. The setting is called Search Services History. It controls whether Google saves your activity from Search services when you are signed into your Google Account.

SCREEN FREE: A major university is taking aim at tech in a sweeping ban against electronic devices in an effort to “ensure students actually learn to think critically, strategically and independently without relying on AI,” according to administrators.

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Apple is suing OpenAI. The complaint is readable and intense, as these things often are, though many experts seem to think many of the allegations are just the ways things are done. So what does Apple really want here, and why is it picking such a public fight with OpenAI?

On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David go through the lawsuit, and look at Apple’s history of splashy litigation to determine whether Apple is worried about a possible competitor or simply looking to capitalize on a weak moment for OpenAI. All this is happening as Apple ships the public betas of its new software, headlined by the new Siri AI, and we have thoughts about what it all means — and whether the new Siri is actually any good.