The United States is experiencing an unusually severe wave of foodborne illness outbreaks this summer, with salmonella found in jalapeños, eggs and dog food, alongside a major cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce and a combined E. coli/salmonella outbreak tied to alfalfa sprouts. Analysis by WIRED of Food and Drug Administration data shows more than 12,800 illnesses linked to foodborne outbreaks so far in 2026, dramatically exceeding any year since 2020 and vastly outstripping the 895 cases recorded last year. Experts attribute the surge to chronic underfunding of food safety systems, policy gaps, and cuts to public health infrastructure under President Donald Trump's administration.

The jalapeño-linked salmonella outbreak has caused at least 431 illnesses and 57 hospitalisations across more than two dozen states, while the sprout-related outbreak has affected 55 people in 15 states. The cyclospora outbreak, with 17,180 laboratory-confirmed cases nationally, is the largest the FDA has investigated since the 1990s, though officials believe the true toll is higher given thousands of unconfirmed cases and cyclospora's tendency to evade standard diagnostic tests. Contributing factors include staffing cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (whose cyclospora-response lab shrank from 11 staff to three), prolonged leadership vacancies at both the CDC and FDA, and roughly $12 billion in cuts to state health department grants in 2025.