The LGMA Marked Twenty Years of Leafy Greens Safety the Week the Largest Cyclospora Outbreak on Record Closed. Here Is What It Has Said, What It Hasn’t, and Ten Things We Can Do Together

On September 15, the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) posted a white paper marking twenty years since the 2006 spinach outbreak that led to its creation. It is called “Twenty Years of Progress,” and its executive summary ends on a line I agree with: food safety is never finished.

Four days earlier, CDC declared the 2026 Cyclospora outbreak linked to Taylor Farms de Mexico iceberg lettuce over. CDC’s final count was 12,883 illnesses in 21 states, at least 570 hospitalizations and two deaths in Michigan. FDA says it is still investigating how the lettuce was contaminated. The white paper does not mention Cyclospora, this outbreak, Mexico or iceberg lettuce.

I have sued lettuce companies for nearly thirty years. I also think the LGMA is the organization best placed to keep the next one of these outbreaks from happening. This post is about both: what the LGMA has said this summer, what it has not, and work we could do together.

What the LGMA said this summer

The LGMA was not silent in July and August. Its public record, in order:

• July 15 and 24. LGMA’s first outbreak statement called lettuce a leading suspect and noted that CDC had discontinued routine national reporting of cyclosporiasis in 2025 after budget cuts. By July 24 a different statement sat at the same web address: sympathy for those sickened, credit to health officials, and acceptance of Mexican-grown lettuce as the likely source. I wrote about the swap in July, and said then that the deleted paragraph was the truest thing any trade group had said about the outbreak.
• July 20. The California and Arizona LGMAs held a public webinar with food safety scientist Dr. Jennifer McEntire on what is known and unknown about Cyclospora, including why testing produce and water for the parasite is so hard. California LGMA CEO Tim York said the goal was to cut through confusion and misinformation.
• July 27. York told CBS News that LGMA membership is voluntary, but “once they join, they must follow our rules.”
• August 9. California LGMA said California lettuce and leafy greens were in full production and not associated with the outbreak, and published a fact sheet on why its members’ greens are low risk for Cyclospora. Arizona LGMA posted its own.
• August 20. LGMA reported hosting five FDA produce safety staff on an August 12 farm tour in the Salinas Valley.

The webinar and the FDA tour were good work. The paragraph that got deleted was good work too.

What the LGMA has not said

Since August 9, I cannot find anything either LGMA has said publicly about the outbreak, on its website or in the press. There was no statement when CDC closed the outbreak, and none on FDA’s continuing investigation. There has been nothing on the roughly 7,000 laboratory-confirmed, U.S.-acquired cases this season that are not tied to any food. CDC’s case page now counts 19,883 confirmed domestic cases from May 1 through August 31, against the outbreak’s 12,883. The two counts carry as-of dates four days apart.

The white paper names two outbreaks, spinach in 2006 and Yuma romaine in 2018. It never names a pathogen, not even E. coli O157:H7 in 2006. The 2019 and 2020 romaine E. coli outbreaks appear only as timeline entries about “new risks” and “food safety updates.” Yet one of the twenty changes the paper lists is root cause investigation after food safety events.

Why the LGMA is in a unique position to lead

Taylor Farms is an LGMA member. It is on the California LGMA’s 2025 certified member list, it holds a seat and an alternate seat on the Advisory Board, and its people sit on the Communications and Technical Committees. The lettuce that sickened 12,883 people came from Taylor Farms de Mexico, outside the program the LGMA audits. A family buying a bag of shredded iceberg sees a brand, not a farm. For them there is no line between a member’s California lettuce and the same member’s Mexican lettuce. The company’s outbreak and recall history is its own story; the point here is that the grower at the center of this outbreak helps govern the program.

That is the problem, and it is also the opportunity. The LGMA has things no regulator or advocacy group has:

• Reach. The white paper says LGMA members grow 94 percent of U.S. leafy greens.
• Speed. Membership is voluntary, compliance is not, and audits are done by the California Department of Food and Agriculture under USDA oversight. The white paper counts more than twenty updates to LGMA standards in twenty years. Federal rules take years each.
• Data. Through Romaine Test & Learn, members already pool pathogen-testing results.
• A shared stake. California farmers told Ag Alert in August that the loss of consumer confidence was the worst since the 2006 spinach outbreak. Growers who did nothing wrong paid for this one.

The white paper’s own 2026 strategic plan names public trust building, through accountability and transparency, as one of three priorities. This is the moment for it.

Ten things we can work on together

1. Close out the outbreak in public. Acknowledge the final count, the people sickened and the two who died and commit to report what members learn from it.
2. One standard for the label, wherever the lettuce is grown. Members’ leafy greens from outside California and Arizona should meet LGMA-equivalent standards, verified by audits comparable to CDFA’s. Where they do not, buyers should be told which product is outside the program.
3. Write Cyclospora into the metrics. Cyclospora comes from human feces, so the controls are field sanitation and handwashing, keeping sick workers out of harvest, and protecting water sources. Workers need paid sick leave for staying home to be possible. LGMA’s own webinar stressed that testing is not the answer, which means prevention has to carry the load, and better detection methods deserve research money through the Center for Produce Safety.
4. Publish the root cause. When FDA finishes its investigation, the LGMA should say publicly what it will change. The public should see root cause findings, not just be told they happen.
5. Name the grower when the file closes. In November 2024, a romaine E. coli O157:H7 outbreak sickened 89 people in 15 states, hospitalized more than a third and killed one. FDA closed it in February 2025 without naming a grower or processor. On September 10, FDA closed a fourteen-person romaine outbreak, reference #1382, the same way, saying the lettuce was past its shelf life. FDA has named farms, processors and brands in that exact situation before. The LGMA should ask FDA to name growers and processors when traceback reaches them, and members whose product was in a traceback should say so themselves.
6. Share the data with public health. Expand Romaine Test & Learn to other crops and to water and environmental results, and give FDA and CDC access as results come in.
7. Bring back the Microbiological Data Program. From 2001 to 2012, USDA’s Microbiological Data Program worked with state agriculture departments to test fresh produce for pathogens. At about $4.5 million a year it was more than 80 percent of government produce testing when its funding ended. The produce industry lobbied to eliminate it. FDA’s Donna Garren has now called for a national approach to produce microbiological data like it. This is surveillance, not testing as prevention, and it tells FDA, CDC and growers where the risk is. LGMA support for its return would carry weight in Congress.
8. Meet federal traceability rules now. The compliance date for FDA’s food traceability rule under FSMA Section 204 has slipped to July 2028. The white paper says members already keep extensive electronic records. They can meet the rule ahead of the deadline.
9. Open the neighbor’s gate for E. coli. Leafy greens E. coli investigations keep pointing to nearby cattle, and investigators often cannot get onto adjacent animal operations to sample. I have drafted a citizen petition asking FDA to use its existing public health authority to get that access during outbreak investigations. The LGMA’s support would matter.
10. Stand up for public health capacity. This industry needs outbreaks found fast and sources named fast. Say so to Congress when CDC, FDA and state laboratory budgets are on the table, and support affordable Cyclospora testing so sick people get counted.

An invitation

I have been on the other side of the table from LGMA members for a long time, and I expect to be again. I would rather not be. The LGMA was built after a tragedy by growers who decided the whole industry had to change because one company’s problem was everyone’s problem. A leafy greens executive says exactly that in the white paper. This summer taught the same lesson again, at more than sixty times the size of the 2006 outbreak.

The LGMA says food safety is never finished. I agree. Let’s finish the next piece of it together, and I would welcome the conversation.