A federal lab that helps states connect cyclospora cases to contaminated food was cut from 11 staffers to three during last year’s government layoffs, according to Joel Barratt, a molecular parasitologist at Emory University School of Medicine who previously led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team.
The reduction matters because cyclospora investigations are slow by design and fast by necessity, a miserable pairing for anyone trying to find a bad batch of produce before more people eat it. The parasite causes cyclosporiasis, a diarrheal illness that can take one to two weeks to appear after exposure. By the time a patient gets sick, seeks care and produces a sample, investigators are already working behind the outbreak curve.
Barratt told WIRED that the staff cuts would sharply reduce the speed and capacity of outbreak responses. He said cyclospora is only one of the pathogens affected by the broader pressure on CDC operations.
The downsizing happened during mass layoffs carried out under President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, according to WIRED. Barratt said he left the CDC voluntarily in September after eight years at the agency, saying he believed he could no longer serve public health under policy changes and staff reductions made while Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. led the department.
Barratt described the workplace as hostile and said hiring freezes forced him to tell colleagues that their positions could not be renewed. An HHS spokesperson did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
WIRED reported in October that the CDC’s overall head count had fallen by about 3,000 employees, around a quarter of the agency, since January 2025. That estimate came from the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents CDC workers, and included layoffs as well as employees who took the Trump administration’s buyout offer. Nature first reported the scale of the cuts at Barratt’s former lab.
The cyclospora outbreak has potentially sickened nearly 7,000 people nationwide, although experts say the real number is likely higher. Michigan had identified more than 4,300 cases as of Thursday.
The CDC is also handling several other health emergencies while operating with fewer people. WIRED listed a major Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, measles outbreaks in the US, E. coli linked to frozen blueberries, infant botulism tied to certain powdered infant formula and salmonella outbreaks from several sources. Anonymous sources told The Washington Post that investigators had identified lettuce from Taylor Farms as a possible source of the cyclospora outbreak.
How the investigation works
The mechanics are tedious, which is the point. After a stool sample tests positive for cyclospora, the sample goes to a state health department, then to the CDC for genetic testing. State epidemiologists interview the patient about foods eaten in the previous two weeks and send that information to federal investigators.
At the CDC, lab staff analyze the parasite’s genetics to see which patients carry the same strain. Epidemiologists then compare those genetic links with interview data, timing and geography to identify clusters of illness that may share a food source.
Amira Roess, a George Mason University professor of global health and epidemiology and a former CDC epidemic intelligence service officer, told WIRED that US public health surveillance and food safety systems already had serious gaps before the 2025 cuts. She said the techniques for outbreak investigation are known, but the work depends on having enough people to do it.
That is the unglamorous part of foodborne disease response: databases, phone calls, lab runs, sample transfers and cross-checking grocery memories from people who have been sick for days. Cutting the staff does not make the parasite easier to trace. It makes the backlog more obedient to arithmetic.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
