An E. coli outbreak last year linked to romaine lettuce killed one person and sickened dozens of others, but the Food and Drug Administration never told the public about it.
According to an FDA report obtained by NBC News, 89 people across 15 states fell ill in an E. coli outbreak in November, but the agency closed its investigation in February without publicly disclosing what happened or naming the companies responsible for the lettuce.
“There were no public communications related to this outbreak,” the report stated, adding that no companies were identified “because there was no product remaining in commerce.”
The people sickened were aged 4 to 90 and reportedly included a 9-year-old boy who nearly died of kidney failure. The FDA report did not provide details about the lone death.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also declared the outbreak over in mid-January, according to a letter it sent to state health departments, which was reviewed by NBC. The following month, the FDA categorized the investigation as “closed” without providing further information.
Though federal officials are not legally obligated to publicize information about all known outbreaks and foodborne illnesses, the FDA has moved toward more transparency in recent years.
The agency said its response to the November E. coli outbreak was not a departure from the norm.
“The FDA names firms when there is enough evidence linking an outbreak to a firm and there is actionable advice for consumers, as long as naming the firm is not legally prohibited,” a spokesperson told NBC. “By the time investigators had confirmed the likely source, the outbreak had already ended and there was no actionable advice for consumers.”
The Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to shrink the size of government hit FDA teams monitoring outbreaks, too. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier announced that he was purging 20,000 full-time roles across the Department of Health and Human Services.
“We no longer have all the mechanisms in place to learn from those situations and prevent the next outbreak from happening,” Taryn Webb, who led the FDA’s public engagement division for human foods until the Trump administration laid her off earlier this month, told NBC.
The FDA maintained that its staff “continue to provide critical communications to consumers associated with foodborne outbreaks.”
Records obtained by the lawyer of the 9-year-old boy who nearly died from the E. coli outbreak showed that California-based Taylor Farms was reportedly behind the salads that sickened dozens.
Multiple victims filed nine separate lawsuits arguing that Taylor Farms sold “defective and unreasonably dangerous” products.
The company denied that it was responsible for the outbreak: “Taylor Farms product WAS NOT the source of the referenced 2024 E. coli outbreak. We perform extensive raw and finished product testing on all our product and there was no evidence of contamination.”
Asked by NBC whether Taylor Farms was indeed the culprit, the FDA said it was restricted by law from “disclosing “confidential commercial information.”
