Taco Bell faces first lawsuit over ‘explosive diarrhea’ outbreak

Taco Bell faces first lawsuit over ‘explosive diarrhea’ outbreak Exclusive details: ‘We are better at this,’ food safety attorney Bill Marler told The Independent. ‘We have been better at this’ - Bookmark An Ohio man was unable to work for two weeks and continues to experience “constant nausea,” as well as a “persistent, ongoing headache,” after he allegedly contracted a parasitic infection eating at Taco Bell, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday. A massive outbreak of cyclosporiasis has sickened thousands of people in dozens of U.S. states, causing, among other things, “explosive diarrhea”, and has now been linked to shredded iceberg lettuce provided to Taco Bell by a West Coast supplier and traced to a farm in Mexico. In an 11-page complaint, Mohammed R. Ayyad says he consumed five orders of Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes and four Avocado Ranch Chicken Stackers across two visits to a Taco Bell in the Cleveland suburb of North Olmsted. Days later, Ayyad developed a headache and chills and was “unable to function normally,” forcing him to lie down, the complaint states. From there, his symptoms continued to worsen, becoming weak and unable to sleep through the night, it goes on. “Plaintiff began vomiting on June 24, 2026, and developed persistent diarrhea,” the complaint continues. “On June 27, 2026, Plaintiff passed his first solid stool in days, only for his diarrhea to return and again worsen. Plaintiff remained ill through at least July 2, 2026, and continued to struggle to tolerate food thereafter.” Ayyad went to the hospital the next day, and provided a stool sample which came back positive for cyclosporiasis. He was prescribed a course of antibiotics, but Ayyad’s complaint says he “continues to experience constant nausea, which spikes each time he takes his medication, as well as a persistent, ongoing headache.” As a result, Ayyad missed two weeks of work, according to the complaint, which describes his recovery as “ongoing.” On the same day Ayyad filed his suit – the first known legal action brought amid the continuing outbreak – Taco Bell said it had removed lettuce from the unnamed supplier, which was identified by The Washington Post as Taylor Farms of Salinas, California, based on a pair of unnamed sources. Cyclosporiasis was one of several foodborne parasites of which the CDC in 2025 stopped requiring mandatory tracking, following President Trump’s installation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to oversee the nation’s public health apparatus. In a statement, attorney Bill Marler, who is representing Ayyad, said, “We filed today to do two things: find out exactly where this parasite came from – which farm, which field, which supplier – and force the changes that keep it from landing on someone's plate again next summer, and the summer after that. Cyclospora outbreaks follow the same script every year, and every year we act surprised. My client didn't get sick because of bad luck. He got sick because contaminated produce moved through the supply chain and nobody stopped it.” This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a Health Alert Network Health Advisory saying that it had received reports of nearly 7,000 cyclosporiasis cases nationwide, as of May 1. Marler’s statement called that number a “staggering increase over the 249 cases reported nationally during the same period in 2025.” Marler is hoping to force a higher level that the case is as much about prevention as accountability. “Cyclospora is badly undercounted — the CDC says so itself — and you cannot prevent what you refuse to count. If we want a summer without thousands of people doubled over from a parasite in their salad, we have to trace these outbreaks back to the source and fix the conditions that produce them.”” On Friday, the FDA and CDC confirmed Taco Bell as the epicenter of the outbreak. Also on Friday, in a phone call from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where Marler spoke at a food safety conference a day earlier, he told The Independent that “there seems to be no clear explanation why the cyclospora numbers across the United States are still several times what the FDA and CDC are saying.” Marler said the Trump administration’s response to the outbreak is “just not the way things should be done.” He pointed to cuts at the FDA, cuts at the CDC, and the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants meant for state health departments as core factors in what the country is now dealing with. “It’s sort of part and parcel of the whole dismantling of government, the whole dismantling of science – you don’t believe in vaccines, you believe in drinking raw milk, you believe in swimming in the s**t-filed Potomac – and the message it sends is that science doesn't matter,” Marler said. “It undercuts trust in government, it’s confusing to the public, and we’re not using all the tools that we have to prevent these illnesses. We are better at this. We have been better at this.” In its own statement on Thursday, Taco Bell said, "While no official advisory has been issued, we believe public health is a shared responsibility among restaurants, their suppliers, and authorities, and we are proud to have consistently acted quickly and proactively to protect our guests. Taco Bell has taken precautionary action, and we encourage all relevant restaurants, retailers, and foodservice operators to do the same.” Ayyad is now seeking general, special, incidental, and consequential damages for general pain and suffering; loss of enjoyment of life, both past and future; past medical and medical-related expenses; future medical and medical-related expenses; travel and travel-related expenses, both past and future; lost wages and lost earnings; emotional distress, past and future; pharmaceutical expenses, past and future; and all other ordinary, incidental, or consequential damages that would, or could, be reasonably anticipated to arise under the circumstances.”