Updated July 25, 2026
Northeast Ohio has become one of the focal points of what federal health officials now describe as the largest multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak the country has seen — an outbreak traced to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants and supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico. In Cleveland and its suburbs, the parasite has sent people to Cleveland Clinic emergency departments, cost them jobs and paychecks, and, in at least one case, landed a mother of eight in surgery.
The national food safety law firm Ron Simon & Associates filed the first lawsuit in the country over the outbreak and now says it represents hundreds of victims nationwide, including Army veteran David Ott and Cleveland resident Tamyra Stewart.
What the CDC and FDA Have Found
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have tied the outbreak to iceberg lettuce grown in central Mexico and distributed in the United States by Taylor Farms. As of the CDC’s July 24 update, 1,947 laboratory-confirmed cyclospora infections among people who reported eating at Taco Bell had been reported across nine states: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Illness onset dates run from June 22 through July 20, 2026, and at least 98 people have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.
Those federal figures capture only a slice of the picture. The CDC and FDA count only laboratory-confirmed cases tied to the multistate investigation, while individual states report their own tallies that include probable illnesses. Michigan alone had logged more than 8,000 cyclosporiasis cases by late July. Ohio’s counts have climbed steadily through the summer, with health officials in Cuyahoga County investigating clusters of illness in the Cleveland area.
Federal investigators have called the epidemiological evidence pointing to Taylor Farms overwhelming. On July 17, 2026, Taylor Farms de Mexico announced it was pulling all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market and initiated a recall that reached both foodservice customers and retail shelves, including Marketside-brand shredded lettuce and salad products sold at Walmart. Taco Bell removed shredded lettuce from restaurants in the affected states.
The laboratory picture has been messier than the epidemiology. The FDA walked back an earlier announcement that a Taylor Farms lettuce sample had tested positive for the parasite, calling the result a false positive while emphasizing that the correction does not change the basis for its investigation or the recall already underway. Mexican health authorities separately reported that lettuce and water samples from the processing facility tested negative. Because cyclospora has a long incubation period, the lettuce actually responsible for the earliest illnesses would have moved through the supply chain and been consumed weeks before any of that testing began — which is why investigators lean on traceback and interview data rather than product sampling alone.
The First Lawsuit: David Ott
On July 17, 2026, Ron Simon & Associates, working with the Ohio firm DiCello Levitt, filed the first lawsuit in the nation arising from the outbreak. The complaint was filed in Mahoning County, Ohio, on behalf of David Ott, a 27-year veteran of the United States Army.
According to the complaint, Ott was in Youngstown on business and staying at a hotel next to a Taco Bell on North Canfield Niles Road. He bought Taco Supremes there on June 18 and again on June 20, 2026. By June 22, he was in serious trouble — severe abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, nausea, low-grade fever, dizziness, and headaches that would not let up. His wife took him to Christus Good Shepherd Medical Center, where he was admitted and put through a colonoscopy, a CT scan, and extensive blood and stool work.
The standard ova-and-parasite panel used in most American labs does not detect cyclospora. Only when a physician ordered a cyclospora-specific screen did the diagnosis come back. Ott spent two days in the hospital and was discharged with a prescription for Bactrim, the sulfa antibiotic that is the standard treatment.
The suit names three defendants for their separate roles in putting the lettuce on his tray: Taco Bell Corp., the national chain; Charter Foods, Inc., the franchisee that operates the Youngstown restaurant; and Taylor Fresh Foods, Inc., doing business as Taylor Farms.
Ron Simon said in a statement accompanying the filing that Ott gave 27 years of his life to the country and should not have spent his summer in a hospital bed, adding that cyclospora “does not appear in food by accident” — it reaches produce when crops are grown, washed, or handled in contact with human or animal waste.
Tamyra Stewart: A Cleveland Case That Escalated
Stewart ate at her neighborhood Taco Bell in Parma Heights on July 6, 2026. Her order included a Mexican Pizza and a hardshell Taco Supreme made with shredded lettuce. Two days later the symptoms began: watery diarrhea, chills, fever, vomiting, bloating, and body pain that would not relent.
By July 12 the pain had become unbearable and she was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic’s Lakewood emergency department. Staff there determined she was too sick for the ER and moved her by ambulance to Cleveland Clinic Lutheran Hospital, where she tested positive for cyclospora. Complications from the infection were severe enough that surgeons removed her gallbladder on July 14. When the hospital attempted to discharge her on July 19, she was readmitted almost immediately with symptoms of a possible stroke.
The financial fallout compounded the medical one. Stewart, a mother of eight, lost a new position at United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cleveland after she was unable to attend orientation from her hospital bed.
Her account, along with that of Ella-Salone Jones — a 55-year-old Southfield, Michigan woman hospitalized at Corewell Health with cyclospora and an acute kidney injury — was published by Food Poisoning News, an outlet sponsored by Ron Simon’s firm. Both women have retained Ron Simon & Associates. As of the firm’s late-July reporting, neither had a complaint on file; the firm has said additional suits are being prepared as medical records and laboratory confirmations come in.
Why Taylor Farms’ History Matters to the Litigation
The plaintiffs’ central theory is that this was foreseeable. In 2013, a salad mix produced by Taylor Farms and traced to one of its Mexican processing plants was linked to a cyclospora outbreak that sickened 631 people in 25 states, with many victims having eaten at Olive Garden and Red Lobster locations. Complaints in the current litigation lean on that history to argue the company was on notice of the specific hazard.
Taylor Farms has said publicly that it is deeply concerned for those who became ill and for consumers whose confidence in fresh produce has been shaken. Neither Taco Bell nor Taylor Farms had responded to the complaints as of late July, and none of the allegations has been tested in court.
About Cyclospora
Cyclospora cayetanensis is a microscopic parasite spread through food or water contaminated with human feces. It is not a bacterium and does not behave like one: it survives chlorine, which is why public health officials have raised questions about pools and splash pads during this outbreak, and it will not show up on the routine stool panels most labs run unless a physician specifically orders a cyclospora screen. That gap is why so many victims in this outbreak spent weeks sick before anyone named what was wrong.
Untreated, the illness can persist a month or longer and characteristically relapses — improving, then worsening, then improving again. It responds to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim), but only once it has been identified.
What Victims Should Do
Attorneys handling these cases consistently give the same practical advice:
- Get a cyclospora-specific test. Laboratory confirmation is the single strongest piece of evidence in a foodborne illness claim, and the standard parasite panel will miss it.
- Preserve receipts, bank and card statements, and app order history. These establish where and when you ate.
- Write down a timeline while it is fresh. Record what you ate in the two weeks before symptoms started, when symptoms began, every provider you saw, and what each one told you.
- Document the financial damage. Missed work, lost wages, lost job offers, and out-of-pocket medical costs are all recoverable categories.
Ron Simon & Associates has established a Taco Bell Cyclospora Claim Center for people sickened in the outbreak, reachable toll-free at 1-888-335-4901 or through the firm’s website at ronsimonassociates.com. The firm, based in Houston, says it has handled thousands of food poisoning cases over more than three decades and recovered more than $850 million for clients.
