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  • 2 days ago
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00:00I just want to go back to when the public sort of became aware of the cyclospora outbreak.
00:04And I say became aware because it was really kind of early to mid-July when this really started to
00:09get out there in the news.
00:10And yet, reporting seemed to suggest that the government itself knew about this weeks before it was actually disclosed, or
00:19at least articulated, out to the public.
00:21Is that normal?
00:23Well, it depends on the pathogen, but very often with cyclospora, sometimes it can be really difficult.
00:30To try to figure out when there's something unusual going on, and also to figure out what the source and
00:36the cause of that is.
00:37And so, it usually is typical that they'll say, we're investigating something, but to actually have actionable information for the
00:46public, to actually do something to avoid becoming sick, sometimes it takes a little bit longer to accumulate that evidence.
00:54And it's especially true with cyclospora, because cyclospora, you have a long incubation period.
01:01It can be up to a couple of weeks.
01:03And usually by the time somebody becomes ill, they go and they see a health care provider, they have a
01:10specimen taken, they have it collected, they have it tested.
01:12You're talking three to four weeks out.
01:15And for public health authorities to have to then go and talk to that person and try to figure out
01:21what it was that may have made them sick can be very, very difficult.
01:25So, our experience is that sometimes it's really hard to nail down what's causing an outbreak.
01:29And I think in this situation, given the enormity of the number of cases of cyclospora in this outbreak, they
01:39actually seem to me to have jumped on it fairly quickly, especially the most impacted states like Michigan and Ohio,
01:47and came up with the source and the likely ingredient in that source relatively quickly in comparison to what I've
01:55seen with other cyclospora outbreaks.
01:57Unfortunately, by the time all of that happened, given how ubiquitous the product was and how many different stores it
02:06was, the number of cases were already really massive.
02:10And that's something that we just don't want to see happen again.
02:14Well, that's what I'm curious about.
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