PARASITE BUILDS LARGER COALITION THAN MOST SENATE CAMPAIGNS, RUNS ON LETTUCE PLATFORM
Cyclospora out-organizes several PACs this cycle, and the FDA's recall showed up fashionably late to its own buffet.
Federal health officials confirmed today they are 'closely monitoring' a multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak that has spent months closely monitoring itself upward, adding new states the way a struggling campaign adds surrogates: reluctantly, and after the damage is done. The parasite, traced to iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell and other outlets, has now built a broader multistate coalition than most Senate hopefuls manage by Labor Day, and unlike them, it didn't need a single town hall to do it.
The FDA's recall was praised by its own spokesperson as proof 'the system worked,' a phrase doing more heavy lifting than the lettuce-washing station it's describing. 'The system worked in the sense that we eventually noticed,' said food-safety spokesperson Ellen Pruitt. 'Illness is often the first responder.' Case dashboards, meanwhile, remained stamped 'preliminary' well past the third thousand confirmed cases, the epidemiological equivalent of a restaurant insisting the check is just an estimate.
Ron Rugundy closed the broadcast staring past the camera like a man who'd just sent back a side salad. 'We were told lettuce was the safe order,' he said. 'It was not. Nothing is safe anymore, least of all the produce aisle. I'm not going to sugarcoat this. I don't know how. I can barely get the lettuce washed.'