Some public health experts said identifying the causes of the outbreak is also complicated by cuts to agencies and programs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has made a series of budget and staff cuts as part of billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to cut costs through his Department of Government Effectiveness (Doge).
The federal government has reduced the capacity of its active surveillance network for foodborne illnesses (FoodNet), which monitors several pathogens, including cyclospora, salmonella and listeria. Last year, FoodNet reduced its monitoring of all but two pathogens.
“Funding has not kept pace” with the resources needed for the program, the CDC wrote in a memo to the state of Connecticut, NBC News reported.
Before FoodNet stopped monitoring cyclosporiasis, it collected data on people who tested positive and verified food sources from states and labs, then collated them nationally, said Guest, who formerly worked at FoodNet.
“When we see an outbreak or a cluster or something like that, we don’t have the data that we would normally expect to use to help us, and this is one of those consequences,” she said. “You start in the dark.”
The CDC is still working with 3,000 health departments to collect data and continues to collect data on cyclospora through surveillance systems other than FoodNet, HHS told the BBC.
The department said health care funding for foodborne illnesses “remains stable.”
In Colorado, which has reported 90 cases this year, about the same as in past years, the state health department said it has received less federal funding and has fewer staff to track cases.
“While our CDC colleagues work diligently to support state partners, we have had to adapt to federal changes,” said Hope Schuler, a spokeswoman for the state department of public health.
The state continues to test, monitor and send data to the CDC, she said.
Manderach said federal agencies responsible for food safety have largely operated under previous standards, despite changes to the agencies during the Trump administration.
“While I do think there were problems early on, most of them seem to have been resolved,” he said.
Other, more serious health problems, such as the deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are also straining resources, said David Weber, a professor of medicine, pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Because of the shortages, states have a responsibility to take more responsibility for foodborne illnesses, said Nancy Glick of the National Consumers League.
“States are doing it now, but they don’t have the resources that the CDC had,” she said.