By Caleb Hellerman and Greg Botelho
CNN
(CNN) — Diners at Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants in Iowa and Nebraska caught an intestinal illness tied to a rare type of parasite after eating eating salad mix that came from Mexico, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
The federal agency said its investigators traced the “illness clusters” to four restaurants, which spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman later identified to CNN as Red Lobster and Olive Garden locations. The probe didn’t find indications that any bags of salad mix with the parasite — known as cyclospora — were sold at U.S. grocery stores.
The tainted salad mix came from Taylor Farms de Mexico, “a processor of foodservice salads,” according to the FDA.
Darden — the parent company for Olive Garden, Red Lobster and other restaurant chains such as LongHorn Steakhouse — described Friday’s announcement from the FDA as “new information.”
“Nothing we have seen prior to this announcement gave us any reason to be concerned about the products we’ve received from this supplier,” Darden said in a statement, in which the company insisted “it is completely safe to eat in our restaurants.”
Taylor Farms has been cooperating with U.S. officials, the FDA said, adding that tests will be conducted at the company’s processing facility in Mexico “to try to learn the probable cause of the outbreak and identify preventive controls.” The last inspection there, in 2011, turned no notable problems, according to the federal agency.
As of Thursday, there had been 146 cases of cyclospora inspections reported in Iowa, according to that state’s public health department. There were 82 reported cases in Nebraska.
Iowa health authorities said Thursday that the prepackaged salad mix of iceberg and romaine lettuce, carrots and red cabbage was no longer in the state’s supply chain.
“Bagged salads and all other vegetables are safe to eat,” the state’s health department said.
What’s happening in that state and Nebraska may be linked to 140 cyclospora cases in Texas, that state’s department of health services said Friday. As of then, authorities had not singled out a common source for the Lone Star State’s outbreak, which is largely centered in and around Dallas and Fort Worth.
The U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has been collaborating with health officials in numerous states since late June trying to pin down what’s causing the spate of cyclospora.
People get the disease by eating food or drinking water that’s been contaminated with feces with the parasite, according to the CDC.
The ailment — which strike in places where cyclospora is common, like tropical or subtropical regions, but is occasionally seen in the United States as well — causes symptoms such as diarrhea, weight loss and nausea that can last anywhere from a few days to more than a month.
