WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter Thursday to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanding answers about whether political donations from Taylor Farms' parent company shaped the regulatory decisions that preceded the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak on record in the United States.
Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Taylor Fresh Foods donated more than $1 million directly to MAGA Inc. a political organization aligned with President Trump, and made additional donations to other Trump-aligned groups totaling millions of dollars. The company also retained a former Trump White House official to lobby on its behalf. Warren said those donations came less than a week after the Trump administration changed federal food traceability rules.
"These investments appear to be closely timed to favorable regulatory actions — decisions that were good for Taylor Farms," Warren wrote. "Decisions that were good for Taylor Farms, but appear to have increased the risk of food safety problems like the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak."
Cyclospora is a parasite that causes prolonged gastrointestinal illness. Taylor Farms, a major commercial lettuce distributor, is the company whose produce is alleged to have spread the parasite in the current outbreak. Warren described the administration's handling of the crisis as calamitous.
Warren's letter identifies three specific institutional changes she says degraded the federal government's capacity to catch and contain this kind of outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Parasitic Division cut staff responsible for tracking and identifying parasites, including cyclospora, as a result of deep funding reductions. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center — which housed two laboratories that investigated cyclospora and employed 3,500 personnel — was forced to close and relocate. The Food and Drug Administration absorbed a separate cut of 3,500 positions.
Warren argued the timing of those three institutional changes raises serious questions about whether the government's ability to prevent, identify and contain foodborne illness was systematically weakened before the crisis emerged.
"The Trump administration's systematic dismantling of the food safety system has hampered the federal government's ability to prevent, identify, and respond to the latest outbreak," Warren wrote.
The senator separated two possible explanations for the policy changes. If ideology alone drove the cuts, she wrote, the result is a dangerously flawed set of policies. But she argued the timing of the Taylor Farms donations relative to the traceability rule change raises a more serious question — whether a company whose lettuce is now at the center of a public health crisis received favorable regulatory treatment in exchange for political support.
"If these changes were motivated solely by ideology, it would reflect a dangerously bad set of policies by the Trump administration," Warren wrote. "But the specter of corruption — and quid pro quo politics — casts a darker shadow over these actions, particularly if political contributions from Taylor Farms' parent company may have influenced policy changes that subsequently endangered millions of Americans."
The letter was addressed to Kennedy, who as HHS secretary oversees both the CDC and the FDA. Warren pressed him for an explanation of whether and how the department considered the company's political activity when making regulatory decisions affecting food safety oversight.
Warren flagged the administration's change to food traceability rules as part of a pattern of regulatory actions she said appear closely timed to Taylor Farms' political donations.
The Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, located in Maryland, had operated for decades as a federal hub for agricultural science before its ordered closure and relocation. The two cyclospora labs Warren cited were among its specialized research assets. Warren's letter argued that shutting down an active research center with direct expertise in the parasite now causing a national outbreak cannot be explained away by budget efficiency alone.
Warren has not called for Kennedy's resignation, but she is demanding that he answer specific questions about the timeline of the policy changes, the company's lobbying activity, and the administration's awareness of the connection between the regulatory rollbacks and the outbreak's spread. The White House and HHS had not responded publicly to the letter as of Thursday.
