Our government has a traditional back and forth. Democrats like to create programs and regulations. Republicans like to cut them.
Usually there was a balance to it, but lately, especially with one side of the aisle deciding it no longer was going to listen to science or experts in their fields, we’ve been seeing a lot more mindless cutting of programs.
Elon Musk famously brought a chain saw on stage to a CPAC event in early 2025 to showcase how haphazardly he was planning to make cuts to government spending while he was in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, a program that made so many unnecessary cuts to programs and government jobs that a significant amount of people needed to be rehired when they were done.
When people make cuts to programs without asking why those programs exist, there are consequences. We’re experiencing one of those consequences right now with the cyclospora outbreak.
Cyclospora is a microscopic, single-celled parasite that infects the small intestine, causing an intestinal illness called cyclosporiasis. It is primarily transmitted by consuming food or drinking water contaminated with infected feces. It frequently causes watery, explosive diarrhea, bloating and fatigue.
The parasite often contaminates fresh fruits and vegetables — such as salad greens, cilantro and berries — through tainted irrigation water or inadequate hygiene during handling.
On Friday, investigators announced that epidemiological and traceback data linked a substantial outbreak cluster to shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico, and it then suspiciously retracted the claim. The alleged contaminated product was served at Taco Bell locations across five states, with Ohio being one of them along with Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia.
At the time I’m writing this, federal health officials have identified 1,644 cases of cyclosporiasis and nearly 100 people have been hospitalized. It’s also likely much worse than that because CDC reporting is delayed badly (Michigan alone has announced over 5,000 cases).
So how did things get so bad?
Usually, when there is an issue with a food-borne illness, the government is on top of it. Top scientists and other experts in their fields are able to investigate the issue quickly, find what the infected people had in common, then trace everything back to a likely source. That didn’t happen for weeks with this cyclosporiasis outbreak.
Why?
It all boils down to unnecessary cuts.
The Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria at the CDC, which does most of the tracing of cyclospora outbreaks, was funded largely by USAID. USAID was established by President John F. Kennedy and provided humanitarian relief and civilian foreign aid globally, but it was one of the first things Musk chopped when he was in charge of DOGE. One team of scientists at the CDC that was funded by USAID originally had 11 members and its program head quit after staffing was cut to just three.
Additionally, the CDC scaled back funding for a federal-state surveillance program for foodborne pathogens called FoodNet a year ago on July 1, 2025. It made the reporting of illnesses like listeria and cyclospora optional. At the time, a representative from Trump’s administration said the Department of Health and Human Services was focusing on more dangerous diseases like salmonella.
This is what happens when unnecessary cuts are made. To make the government “more efficient,” it stopped taking less-deadly diseases as seriously and now there is a massive outbreak of foodborne illness that is hitting us at home.
You’d think they would have learned their lesson because this isn’t the first time slashing funding for science has backfired on this administration.
DOGE also cut about $15 million of federal funding for the government’s screwworm monitoring program in central America as part of its slashing of USAID. The government had a program in Panama that released sterile screwworm larvae into the wild to attempt to halt the northern spread of screwworm, which causes devastation to cattle herds.
Earlier this summer, screwworm was discovered in the United States for the first time since it had been declared eradicated in the 1960s. If you thought beef was expensive before, just wait. The Trump administration now is preparing to spend $1.3 billion to combat the screw worm outbreak.
Save $15 million to spend $1.3 billion. How efficient.
This isn’t even the first disease outbreak directly traced to a poor Trump administration policy.
This past April, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth, playing to a growing anti-vaccine base of voters, issued a memo making the annual influenza vaccine voluntary for military personnel.
Less than two months later, a major flu outbreak occurred at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, racing through the basic military training wing where new recruits sleep in bunk beds and share meals at large communal tables.
Nearly 300 troops got sick and at least one died.
At the time of the outbreak, only 40% of the recruits had opted to take the vaccine due to the change in policy. The Air Force has since rescinded the policy, requiring all recruits get their flu shots.
Yet again, political decisions were made that ignored science and they backfired.
How much more can we take? At some point, people need to remember that some policies and programs exist for a reason.
The unintended consequences of these decisions have been explosive in 2026 — and not just in the bathroom.
