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Taylor Farms has rewritten its cyclospora statement four times in sixteen days
- senthil_rajasek 3mo agoI have not been following this very closely but it seems like the source of this cyclospora contamination has been very challenging to identify. Especially because it takes weeks before the infected start showing symptoms. Isn't it reasonable to update the official statement as new information emerges? "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” -John Maynard Keynes.
- TylerE 3mo agoWhat changed is that right after the CEO visited the White House, a retraction was issued. This White House does not have a history of being factual, but does have a history of doing "favors" for big donors, which Taylor Farms is.
- senthil_rajasek 3mo agoThanks.
- dabraham1248 3mo agoMostly to be a pedantic devil's advocate here, I'm going to argue with something you're not saying. I've heard a _lot_ of people argue that the visit is _proof_ of corruption. You're just pointing out the possibility and I'm hoping to head off a bad path. Anyway, if a company is being declared the source of a multi-state outbreak, that company _should_ be talking to the WH. And it's possible that some of those discussions would present evidence that _should_ result in a retraction. For example, during heartbleed my grand-boss was in on calls with the WH (I don't work on openssl, at the time I worked on a product that _used_ openssl a couple of layers down). AIUI, official guidance changed because of those calls. If we want to find proof of corruption, this is a place to start looking, not a place to stop.
- foxyv 3mo agoUnfortunately, the mark of corruption spreads to everything it touches. Once you are seen taking bribes for pardons, engaging in crypto scams, and manipulating the stock market to make billions you no longer are given the benefit of the doubt. There is zero evidence for corruption in this case, other than all of the blatant corruption elsewhere. Worse, the person involved is responsible for investigating the corruption. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2026/05/07/democrats-investigate-whether-trumps-pardons-were-pay-to-play-here-are-the-big-time-donors-and-business-allies-hes-sprung-free/?streamIndex=0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2026/05/07/democra... https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/21073697321938 https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/21073697321938 https://fortune.com/2026/05/23/trump-stock-portfolio-trading-market-strategies-indexing-tax-loss-harvesting/ https://fortune.com/2026/05/23/trump-stock-portfolio-trading...
- Tostino 3mo agoYup, don't care. The trust has been broken a thousand times with this admin. Why should I believe this is the one time they are being straight with us?
- datsci_est_2015 3mo agoYou don’t mean that the people behind $MELANIA coin may have ill intentions, do you? /s The credulousness that this administration is granted by devil’s advocates and “rationalists” is exhausting.
- vel0city 3mo agoI agree a company being implicated as a source of a multi-state outbreak should absolutely be communicating with the executive branch. They should absolutely have their teams talking with the USDA, FDA, CDC, state health and food agencies, and any organizations involved to assist in testing and confirming findings. I disagree that it makes a lot of sense for the CEO of the company to go to the Whitehouse in person to have a talk about the situation. I do agree it on its face is necessarily a direct piece of proof of corruption, as we don't actually know what was talked about. For all we know they just talked about the weather. You're free to believe that if you want. I'm not an idiot though, and when extremely corrupt people do things that look like corruption my gut instinct is to assume corrupt actions are taking place.
- TylerE 3mo agoSeems the usual HN MAGA types can't handle the truth. Keep downvoting me. Only shows how pathetic you are. Everything I state is easily verifiable from respectable public sources.
- AdamN 3mo agoIt's sad that this was heavily downvoted on HN but times really have changed in this community. What you said is just straight up true and not derogatory or misleading.
- Wistar 3mo agoI have gone down that quote’s rabbit hole before and it looks a lot more apocryphal than Maynard. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/22/keynes-change-mind/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/22/keynes-change-mind/
- npilk 3mo agoHuh. I used to think that was a Keynes quote but now I've changed my mind.
- peder 3mo agoAnd TBF, I don't think they've established why the issue is so prevalent in Michigan specifically, since Taylor Farms apparently doesn't have any unique connection to Michigan.
- falcor84 3mo ago> Especially because it takes weeks before the infected start showing symptoms. I just wanted to say that your phrasing here is a fabulously ominous one for the first episode of an HBO show.
- senthil_rajasek 3mo agoHa! Seems like I am living in one these days.
- iwontberude 3mo ago[flagged]
- inigyou 3mo agoFiat currency (including bitcoin) is a bigger ponzi, and the stock market (including crypto project tokens) is a bigger ponzi than that.
- iwontberude 3mo ago[flagged]
- gazebo2 3mo agoTook me a sec to realize you weren't quoting the guy from Tool lol
- Danox 3mo agoExplosive diarrhea doesn’t take long to show up, and it may be hard to identify which company or who’s responsible when you fired all of the people from the department that it’s supposed to police those type of things.
- godwinson__4-8 3mo agoIsn't the "explosive" superfluous? Isn't all diarrhea explosive? Has anyone had "unexplosive" diarrhea? Or what aspect of the ordinance renders it "explosive"? And the cause is essentially exposure of the foodstuffs (in this case, likely leafy greens) to feces? So poop causes poop. Who pooped in my salad :(
- hightrix 3mo agoAs an IBS enjoyer, no, not all diarrhea is explosive.
- Tostino 3mo agoNo, from what I have heard "explosive" isn't being treated with enough weight. Not all diarrhea is "explosive". This is worse than your average food poisoning from everything i've read (luckily, no personal experience so far).
- godwinson__4-8 3mo ago>No, from what I have heard "explosive" isn't being treated with enough weight. Hmm I had not heard this, that is concerning. Thank you for sharing. No more salad for me, thanks.
- dgellow 3mo agoNo, it’s actually one of the symptom, it is described as explosive, not a standard diarrhea
- fsloth 3mo agoTo me "explosive" means it comes unannounced and evacuates bowels within few seconds, ovepowering any sphincter resistance. If that's your normal poop maybe seek medical advice.
- pc86 3mo agoMarketing blogspam by an ambulance chasing attorney who stands to make a lot of money from this if public perception moves a certain way.
- curuinor 3mo agoHow much of a sin is it for the ambulance-chaser to chase ambulances if the ambulances are there and legitimate? This is what the tort law is for. He's not the one who sprayed feces-water on the lettuce...
- pixlmint 3mo agoStarted out with "It's not X, it's also Y", followed by an em-dash. I didn't read any further than that.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- ratelimitsteve 3mo agoengaging with the identity of the arguer rather than the argument. 5 yard penalty, loss of down.
- pc86 3mo agoSportsball reference, permaban? There's nothing wrong with "engaging with" the identity of someone when their identity is both reprehensible and negates any impartiality.
- Joel_Mckay 3mo agoCommercial insurance means whatever action they do or don't do is ultimately irrelevant. The supplier will re-brand under another name when things quiet down, proceed to continue selling product, and deduct any capital loss over a year or two. Global weather changes means more tropical pests and pathogens are migrating north. People are literally on fire, and shitting their pants in excitement. =3
- felooboolooomba 3mo ago
- metabagel 3mo ago[dead]
- sharps_xp 3mo agoI went to restaurant last night and asked where the chicken was sourced from and their response was "it's not the usual place we get chicken, but it's US Farm Raised Hatched", but I misinterpreted the her answer as a distributor name but then I realized even if I had a name, I probably couldn't figure out past that whether or not these chickens were pasture raised. If food labels are law, why doesn't this apply to where restaurants source their ingredients?
- estearum 3mo agoAre food labels required to identify where they're sourced from? I don't think so?
- bushbaba 3mo agoIt’s not but they should list country of origin for the ingredients
- pc86 3mo ago"Should" or "are required to?"
- tyre 3mo agoDepends on the thing. Olive oil, for example, is required to list its country/countries of origin
- sgc 3mo agoRegulations are minimal compared to what most consumers would want and expect. https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/cool https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/cool
- lostlogin 3mo agoIs that true though? Trump was very clear about what he would do, and was voted in. And here we are.
- cube00 3mo agoIt's next level for a family owned company act like they have stock holders to please by cutting corners rather then doing the right thing.
- striking 3mo ago95% of farms are "family owned". Large scale family owned farms make up about 4% of all farms but 48% of agricultural output. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2025/Census22_HL_FamilyFarms_FINAL.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2025/Censu... There's a tendency to want to be nice to farmers who own "family owned farms" because it evokes imagery steeped in quaint classical Americana. It is mostly from misinformation that this impression arises. Don't feel bad for a family owned farm that isn't going well. They get special bankruptcy rules, they can sell off their very valuable land as a backstop, and most of all they are probably not as small and quaint and cute as you think they are.
- Aurornis 3mo ago> family owned company act like they have stock holders A family owned company does have shareholders. The shareholders are the people who own the company. There’s nothing all that special about a family owned business in this regard, even though they want you to believe it’s completely different. Family owned is a loose term anyway. Large companies are large companies.
- UltraSane 3mo agoEvery family-owned company I've worked for has been owned by a greedy family.
- ericmcer 3mo agoif anything they are even more tight fisted because every penny is theirs. publicly traded/vc funded companies have always paid me the most because the money isn’t really theirs.
- the_bear 3mo agoCompanies can prioritize things other that money if the shareholders all agree. The more shareholders a company has, the harder it is for them all to agree on anything aside from "we want more money". Family-owned business often (but not always) have a small number of shareholders, so it's easier for them to have shared values. For example, my brother and I co-own a smallish (~$5 million/year revenue) software business. We do care about money to some extent, but we regularly agree to do things that work against shareholder value because we also care about things other than money. With two people, it's easy for our values to be aligned on those other things. With dozens or more shareholders, that's basically impossible. A publicly traded company couldn't realistically be like "hey shareholders, can we agree that we care a lot about this niche local political issue in the town the company was founded?" The more shareholders you have, the more the only commonality between them is "we want more money". There are many family-owned businesses that are only in it for the money, but "family-owned" can be a proxy for "not very many shareholders" which at least opens the door for the company to have non-financial priorities.
- t1234s 3mo agoI was always under the impression that disease and pesticide don't usually just "wash off" at home.
- ceejayoz 3mo agoThis depends on the food and the disease/pesticide in question.
- maxlybbert 3mo agoI remember seeing advice, years ago, to let lettuce sit in a weak bleach solution before use. But I doubt that’s ever been followed by many people. Current advice (at least at home) seems to be to rinse lettuce to remove dirt ( https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/safe-handling-of-lettuce-leafy-green-salads/ https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/safe-handling-of-lettuce-... ). Apparently most health problems from lettuce are on the surface and not particularly hard to get off.
- NetMageSCW 3mo agoWhich wouldn’t help in this case. It seems like it is time to irradiate produce.
- Maxion 3mo agoOr just, you know, grow it in a clean manner, and not turn it into an ultra processed food?
- ndsipa_pomu 3mo agoI wouldn't classify bagged salad as an ultra processed food as it's usually just cut and cleaned leaves from the various ingredients. It's not like they pour all the leaves into a machine and get soylent green out of the other end.
- herf 3mo agoGPTZero "AI" score for this post: 100%
- nerdsniper 3mo agoWhy should I put any stock in what some snake oil "AI detector" says?
- inigyou 3mo agoYou shouldn't. You should instead take note of "it's not X, it's Y" and em-dashes.
- bigfishrunning 3mo agoYou're absolutely right! Those are load-bearing assumptions.
- nnevatie 3mo agoThis is the right shape!
- done_lurking 3mo agoIt seems plausible that someone could make a decent discriminator for distinguishing human text from AI text. I wouldn't immediately discount the idea.
- gruez 3mo agoI scanned the post on pangram and got the same result. Also, I'm not sure about you, but using AI tools for AI detection seems more rigorous than people going based off counting how many em-dashes there are and similar vibes.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- drivebyhooting 3mo ago> A company’s public statement in the middle of an outbreak is not marketing. It is evidence — what the company said it knew, and when, published to the world at a moment when nobody had the benefit of hindsight. Stopped reading immediately. If we’re just going to delegate writing to Claude, I won’t bother reading this. And maybe I’ll just delegate my decisions to Claude directly.
- Barbing 3mo agoKept reading and yep there’s more, so it wasn’t just the intro. Not quoting it though since someone said they’re ambulance chasers, they’ll have to hire out a smellchecker.
- peder 3mo agoThis is an obvious next step tho? When I want news, I'll just ask Claude. Everything funnels to these providers?
- josefritzishere 3mo agoRelated: https://www.wired.com/story/diarrhea-outbreak-taylor-farms-maga-donations-lobbying/ https://www.wired.com/story/diarrhea-outbreak-taylor-farms-m...
- Simulacra 3mo agoThe lawyers rewrote it four times
- nate 3mo ago"is not marketing. It is evidence". ugh. I'm so confused how to feel about these articles. this one is clearly AI written. But blessed by a lawyer so we think the stuff in here is accurate with facts? I've accidentally posted an AI article before that seemed just as this was, and the community flagged that to oblivion. Rightfully so I think? Does Hacker News need a "report AI" and we can then hide the AI articles as a filter?
- StilesCrisis 3mo agoThis is the Claudiest article I've seen in a long time. "Defensible view." "No correction, no note, no acknowledgment." "The honest statement about X." So the next question is, how much of this is true at all, versus just being hallucinations.
- stronglikedan 3mo ago[flagged]
- meroes 3mo agoAll I know is the Taylor Farms Creamy Ranch from Costco gave me the worst stomach aches for 4 days and horrible gas
- bamboozled 3mo agoI actually feel sorry for people that they have to eat this stuff.
- wnevets 3mo ago> The CDC Has a Cyclospora Lab. DOGE Downsized It Last Year [1] [1] https://www.wired.com/story/cdc-cyclospora-lab-doge-downsized-it-last-year/ https://www.wired.com/story/cdc-cyclospora-lab-doge-downsize...
- dgellow 3mo agoDOGE will be seen by historians as the cause of so many crisis…
- bamboozled 3mo agoImagine how frustrated the laid off staff must be, especially if they end up either the illness themselves.
- cyanydeez 3mo agooptimistic, this requires the arc of history to bend towards non-fascism.
- dgellow 3mo agoFair. Though based on previous experiments fascist regimes aren’t that stable and competent, they have a tendency to self-destruct once they are in power. It’s a sad state of affairs that is considered optimistic
- epistasis 3mo agoWell, there will at least be historians in other countries covering the downfall in detail, if there is indeed a bigger downfall than has already happened. Democracies are pretty good at studying the failures of other countries and learning about them.
- lostlogin 3mo ago‘and learning about them’ I’m not at all convinced about this part.
- burnt-resistor 3mo agoDon't care. TF uses slave labor. Boycott.
- josefritzishere 3mo agoYou referring to their use of prison labor?
- vel0city 3mo agoYes. Using forced prison labor is using slave labor.
- NetMageSCW 3mo agoAre the prisoners given no choice? I’m okay with it either way - as long as prison time isn’t unjust.
- vel0city 3mo agoAt what point is it forced/not forced to you? This was related to an Arizona Correctional Industries prison labor contract. In Arizona, labor is mandatory. They either work in these corporate-tied programs or they have to work some other kind of job at the prison. Is that really a choice?
- metalliqaz 3mo agoHow much choice do you have? I know I don't have much. Either work or go without health care, shelter, and food. All I get to do is choose the job. Sounds like they do too.
- vel0city 3mo ago> All I get to do is choose the job. And have minimum wages, and have workplace safety standards, have recourse for injuries while working, etc. They don't get that, they're not "employees".
- ck2 3mo agobtw people are DYING from this infection now: * https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michigan-deaths-us-cyclospora-cyclosporiasis-outbreak-b3026709.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michigan-d...
- ssl-3 3mo agoIt's worth noting that Taylor Farms consumer bagged salads are consistently marked, in the form of an alphanumeric code printed on the bag near the sell-by date. When this code begins with TF (like, say, the TFRB182A11B I had on a bag in my fridge last month), it's a Taylor Farms product. They control a huge percentage of this market. Their products can be hard to avoid, and are sold under a wide variety of different brand names. But again: They're all marked with TF. --- It's also worth noting that there's some brand names that are never products of Taylor Farms. Dole is the only example that I can find in stores near me (Ohio), but there may be others wherever you are. (Food distribution is often very regionalized.)
- jancsika 3mo ago> It's worth noting that Taylor Farms consumer bagged salads are consistently marked, in the form of an alphanumeric code printed on the bag near the sell-by date. This reads like C strings having not only a null terminator but carrying around a lifetime value specified in microseconds, and memory safety errors leading to weeks of explosive diarrhea. How important is iceberg to your diet that you needed to create this YOLO lettuce header (heh)?
- FlyingBears 3mo agoHow important to your diet is that lettuce? Do you want to get fat eating bread all the time or can you stick your burger on that lettuce leaf? Done. The header is the standard, which allows us to even have this conversation about tracking sources.
- TylerE 3mo agoNot really. Lettuce has virtually zero nutritional value.
- greycol 3mo agoWhich is a benefit in itself, it adds texture and is inoffensively flavoured (hell on the right day or if I haven't drank enough water yet it can taste great). All without adding many calories to the meal. It's also a much cheaper alternative than ozempic for those of us who don't have the consistent willpower to not treat ourselves to more food when we're hungry even if we know we have all the calories we need.
- catlover76 3mo ago[dead]
- pudgywalsh 3mo ago[flagged]
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