By Siddhi Mahatole, Bo Erickson, Tom Polansek and Sarah Morland
July 27 (Reuters) - U.S. produce supplier Taylor Farms complained to White House and Food and Drug Administration officials about the government's inspection process earlier this month, a source familiar with the meeting said on Monday, as Michigan reported a spike in cases of a parasitic disease tied to the company's lettuce from Mexico.
Consumers have been on edge for weeks about whether it is safe to eat lettuce served at restaurants
and elsewhere due to uncertainty over what products may be making people sick with cyclosporiasis, an intestinal disease that can cause explosive diarrhea. Questions persist, and many people have avoided fresh produce to sidestep potential infections.
An FDA investigation linked the outbreak to iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants sourced from privately held Taylor Farms' operations in central Mexico. However, health officials are searching for other potential sources.
Some large retailers and restaurants were shunning produce from other growers in central Mexico out of fear about broader contamination of the region's farms, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said.
U.S. Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter that he launched an inquiry into Taylor Farms' role in the outbreak and whether the company attempted to influence the FDA's response.
"Taylor Farms donated millions to President Trump, met privately with the White House the night the FDA identified their lettuce as the source of this outbreak, and then reportedly tried to distance themselves from this outbreak," Garcia said.
Taylor Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
PRODUCER SUSPENDS MEXICAN OPERATIONS
Taylor Farms has said it immediately removed all potentially affected products from the marketplace when questions arose about the source of the outbreak and also voluntarily suspended production of all products at its facility in central Mexico.
The FDA said Taylor Farms agreed to remove affected produce following extensive discussions. But the company did not meet an established 24-hour time frame for determining whether it would take voluntary action after the agency presented it with evidence, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Taylor Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Another person familiar with the matter said Taylor Farms requested a meeting and spoke with officials from the White House and the FDA. The source described the meeting as Taylor Farms complaining about the government's inspection process.
Taylor Farms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House is closely monitoring the investigation into the outbreak, spokesman Kush Desai said.
“Any notion that the White House or Trump administration would ever compromise on the health and safety of the American people is absolutely false," he said.
"The FDA is conducting a thorough and evidence-based outbreak investigation, and has never 'walked back' anything regarding the overwhelming epidemiological evidence pointing to a shipment of shredded lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico."
CENTRAL MEXICO CONTAMINATION FEARS GROW
The U.S. outbreak has resulted in 4,173 laboratory-confirmed cases, with health authorities aware of more than 7,400 additional suspected cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Michigan on Monday reported 9,253 cases, an increase of 1,077 cases since its last update on Friday. County health officials told Reuters they thought other, unidentified items were making people sick besides Taylor Farms' lettuce from Mexico.
"Certainly, it doesn't tell the whole story with this one recall," said Avani Sheth, chief medical health officer in Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit.
Removing products from central Mexico from supply chains should mitigate ongoing risks to consumers, said Gottlieb, the FDA's former chief.
Speaking on CNBC on Monday, he said multiple outbreak clusters, including in the Great Lakes region, New York and North Carolina, appeared to be potentially linked to parsley and cilantro from central Mexico, though investigators have not determined the exact source.
"I think everyone believes that region is suspect," Gottlieb said. "A lot of that product's being taken out of supply chains."
Gottlieb did not identify companies removing products, and Reuters was not immediately able to confirm which retailers may have stopped sourcing Mexican produce.
TRUE SCOPE OF OUTBREAK LIKELY FAR LARGER, FORMER FDA HEAD SAYS
Gottlieb said the true scope of infection was likely 10 to 20 times greater than the reported case number.
Weather conditions raised the risk of widespread contamination, he said, adding that raw sewage could have reached growing areas through flooding, a sewage canal breach, irrigation water or overflowing portable toilets used by farm workers.
"There was some event that happened in central Mexico — we don't know what yet — that led to a lot of fields probably getting contaminated," Gottlieb said.
In Mexico, analysts said it was important to wait for the results of official investigations.
Mario Puente, the head of health and safety at Mexico's CNA agricultural chamber, said the trade association was working closely with authorities to investigate the outbreak and improve preventive practices.
Mexican authorities said last week that irrigation at Taylor Farms came from certified, company-owned wells. They did not identify health issues with workers, and water samples, as well as lettuce samples, tested negative.
Juan Carlos Anaya, director of consultancy GCMA, said he found it surprising that lettuce samples have not yet tested positive for cyclospora and that just a few cases of illness were confirmed in Mexico.
"The situation isn't what it is in the United States, and we eat lettuce too," he said.
(Reporting by Siddhi Mahatole in Bengaluru, Bo Erickson in Washington, Tom Polansek in Chicago and Sarah Morland in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Anuja Bharat Mistry and Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru; Editing by Caroline Humer, Emily Schmall and Matthew Lewis)
