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> The CDC Has a Cyclospora Lab. DOGE Downsized It Last Year [1]

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/cdc-cyclospora-lab-doge-downsize...

DOGE will be seen by historians as the cause of so many crisis…
Well, shit in peace i guess.
From 11 to 3 employees. Doesn't seem that outrageous outside of such a time of crisis (since this lab seem dedicated solely to outbreaks, not research), which is when the parent entity should temporarily allocate more people.
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.

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.

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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.)

It boggles my mind that people would buy salads in bags. Instead of just a head of lettuce like the rest of the world.
> 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)?

I 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?
This, but unironically

https://youtu.be/G__PVLB8Nm4

Are food labels required to identify where they're sourced from? I don't think so?
I wonder how high the ongoing implementation cost of that would be and how that would affect choice between small, specialized and large, integrated suppliers. Sysco can probably hand me a single sheet I can use without any extra work.
Restaurants don't even have to track and disclose what allergens their food contains.
"I went to restaurant last night and asked ..."

USDA Organic isn't perfect but it is, largely, the only meaningful information you can be given.

Everything else is weasel wording and subterfuge.

Seems like more bureaucracy that would make it even harder for new restaurants to get set up and the paperwork they would have to maintain in order to provide that information.
I 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.

I 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/

> 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.

And 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.
What 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.
Explosive 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.
Took me a sec to realize you weren't quoting the guy from Tool lol
Marketing blogspam by an ambulance chasing attorney who stands to make a lot of money from this if public perception moves a certain way.
How 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...
Started out with "It's not X, it's also Y", followed by an em-dash. I didn't read any further than that.
Commercial 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

How much does astroturfing pay these days?
engaging with the identity of the arguer rather than the argument. 5 yard penalty, loss of down.
It'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.
> 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.

Family or not, when these are the executives you hire for over a decade it shouldn't surprise anyone that events like this occur: https://www.ksbw.com/article/taylor-farms-tennessee-ex-presi...

>Brian Thure served as president of Taylor Farms Tennessee from about 2012 until March 2026 and allegedly used his authority over finances, payroll, vendors and accounting to divert company money for personal benefit. >Taylor Farms claims the alleged fraud came to light during an IRS audit

It’s a multi billion dollar corporation. It’s not a mom and pop 10 acre farm. Family owned means nothing at that point.
The lawyers rewrote it four times
"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?

All I know is the Taylor Farms Creamy Ranch from Costco gave me the worst stomach aches for 4 days and horrible gas
I was always under the impression that disease and pesticide don't usually just "wash off" at home.
btw people are DYING from this infection now:

* https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michigan-d...

> 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.

Don't care. TF uses slave labor. Boycott.
GPTZero "AI" score for this post: 100%