On September 17, Representative Rosa DeLauro and twenty-four other Democrats in the House and Senate wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins asking USDA to stop closing the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and to put its Cyclospora research back to work. It is the fifteenth congressional letter on the 2026 outbreak, the second to USDA in four days, and the first signed by members of both chambers. DeLauro’s announcement names seven lawmakers; the letter itself carries twenty-five signatures, seventeen from the House and eight from the Senate, including Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. That makes six House letters, eight Senate letters and one from both, all from Democrats. I last wrote about the letters on September 15. As of this afternoon I still cannot find a published answer to any of them.
The letter says the outbreak has sickened nearly 20,000 people. CDC’s case data put it at 19,883 laboratory-confirmed domestic cases for the May 1 to August 31 season, with 1,064 hospitalizations and two deaths in forty-nine states and the District of Columbia, as of September 15. CDC says that was its last weekly update; the page will now change only periodically. On September 11 CDC declared the outbreak over with 12,883 illnesses tied to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico. That leaves exactly 7,000 confirmed cases this season with no food named. FDA says its investigation continues. Where those 7,000 people picked up the parasite is a research question, and research is what this letter is about.
What the fifteenth letter adds
The fourteenth letter, from Representative Debbie Dingell and nine House colleagues, asked whether USDA would seek the congressional approval its reorganization requires. The fifteenth goes after the Department’s explanation. USDA told Politico, in a statement Reuters carried, that Congress did not fund two of the three Beltsville Cyclospora projects for fiscal 2026 and that none of the research has been disrupted. The members write that Congress ended that funding on technical advice from USDA that the researchers would stay at Beltsville and that the Department would keep their expertise without ending its Cyclospora work. That is the members’ account. USDA has not published one.
On the third project, which is still funded, the letter relies on Politico’s reporting that the scientists declined orders to move to Iowa, leaving no dedicated USDA staff to study the parasite. It asks five questions: whether all the Beltsville Cyclospora staff have declined to relocate and whether anyone has been hired to replace them; how many other projects will lose scientists; how USDA will keep the research uninterrupted; where the work will go and whether the receiving labs can handle it; and whether USDA will ship highly pathogenic organisms across the country, and how safely.
The members write that USDA has spent more than $170 million upgrading and repairing Beltsville since 2016, including a $32 million renovation of its food safety laboratory finished in 2022, and that the Agricultural Research Service receives more than $1.8 billion a year. They ask USDA to stop the closure and halt the reorganization. Unlike the Dingell letter, which asked for answers within two weeks, this one sets no date. It asks for a timely response.
Why it matters
For two months I have written that the letters asked about surveillance cuts, political influence and the recall, and that none of the first thirteen asked how to keep the next outbreak from happening. Two letters in four days now do. There is no whole genome sequencing for this parasite. CDC links cases by genotyping, and used it in this outbreak to show the parasites making people sick were genetically related. That science does not maintain itself.
In July, Secretary Rollins told a Hill audience that cyclosporiasis is an FDA issue, not a USDA one. On outbreak response that is mostly right. On research it is not, and two letters have now gone to the department that holds the bench.
Here is the whole list, updated. The column on the right is still the one to read.
| Date | Who wrote, and to whom | What was asked for | Deadline and status |
| Jul 14 | Sen. Amy Klobuchar (MN) to CDC and FDA | Restore FoodNet, FERN, inspection staffing and public health grants | None set. No answer found |
| Jul 15 | Rep. Greg Stanton (AZ) to Sec. Kennedy | Six questions: who ordered the surveillance change, what funding was cut, how many staff lost | Aug 3. Passed, no answer found |
| Jul 16 | Sen. Jon Ossoff (GA) to Sec. Kennedy | Three questions on restoring Cyclosporatracking and the state of the investigation | 72 hours, Jul 19. Passed, no answer found |
| Jul 17 | Reps. Dingell, McDonald Rivet, Scholten and Tlaib (MI) to CDC and FDA | Ten questions from inside the outbreak, including whether the agencies agree with Michigan on the source | Jul 24. Passed, no answer found |
| Jul 20 | Rep. Josh Gottheimer (NJ) to CDC | Restore FoodNet to mandatory active surveillance, plus two bills | None set. No answer found |
| Jul 20 | Sens. Blumenthal (CT) and Booker (NJ) to CDC | A briefing on how the outbreak was tracked and whether staffing cuts caused delay | Undated. No answer found |
| Jul 24 | Sen. Ossoff, second letter, to Sec. Kennedy | The same three questions, plus the fact that the first letter went unanswered | None set. No answer found |
| Jul 27 | Rep. Robert Garcia (CA), Oversight Ranking Member, to Bruce Taylor | Five categories of documents and five written questions, including facility records back to 2013 | Aug 10. Passed, no production found |
| Jul 28 | Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) to CDC and FDA | Six questions on the collapse of the federal laboratory network | Jul 31. Passed, no answer found |
| Jul 30 | Sen. Blumenthal, PSI Ranking Member, to FDA | All records, including every communication with the White House and with the company | Aug 13. Passed, no answer found |
| Jul 30 | Sen. Blumenthal, PSI Ranking Member, to Bruce Taylor | All records, including every communication with the White House and with FDA | Aug 13. Passed, no production found |
| Jul 30 | Reps. Veasey, Dingell and Sewell with about fifty colleagues, to CDC and FDA | Transparency and immediate action to identify the source | None set. No answer found |
| Aug 13 | Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) to Sec. Kennedy | Nine questions on the retracted test, the White House call, what the outbreak has cost, and which states still report | Aug 27. Passed, no answer found |
| Sep 14 | Rep. Dingell (MI) and nine House colleagues to Sec. Rollins, USDA | Six questions on the shelved Cyclosporaresearch, staff losses at the research service, and whether USDA will seek congressional approval for its reorganization | Two weeks from receipt, about Sep 28. Pending |
| Sep 17 | Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT), Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) and 23 other Democrats in both chambers to Sec. Rollins, USDA | Five questions on the Beltsville Cyclospora staff, the relocation plan and moving pathogens; stop closing Beltsville and halt the reorganization | None set. Sent Sep 17 |
I believe that is every letter and I am not certain it is. I have had to add letters after publishing before. No answer found means exactly that and nothing more; an agency can answer a member privately, and neither side has to publish it. If you have an answer to any of these, send it and I will correct this post.
The fix is in the next funding bill
USDA blames the fiscal 2026 appropriations law; the members say Congress acted on USDA’s own advice. Either way, the repair runs through one place. The November 2025 law that ended the shutdown carries both the Beltsville funding decision and Section 780, which bars FDA from spending money to administer or enforce the food traceability rule before July 20, 2028. Fiscal 2027 begins October 1, and the letter says Democrats are ready to build on existing Cyclospora research in the final funding agreement. Congress can restore the research and lift the traceability delay in that bill. Neither fix needs a letter. The Beltsville reversal does not even need Congress; the members write that it is wholly within the Secretary’s power to do immediately.
Still no hearing
Eight dated deadlines have passed without a published answer, the last on August 27. The Dingell letter’s two weeks run out around September 28, and the DeLauro letter set none. No committee has noticed a hearing. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held a hearing on Cyclospora in imported raspberries in July 1998, can issue a subpoena; Senator Blumenthal wrote as its ranking member, and a ranking member cannot subpoena alone. The House Oversight majority can adopt Representative Garcia’s document request as the committee’s own. The Agriculture Committees oversee USDA, and the appropriators fund all three agencies. Twenty-five members signed the newest letter, and none of them holds a gavel. Every one of those tools belongs to the majority.
CDC has stopped counting weekly. Fifteen letters have put them in writing, and not one has a published answer. If a letter will not put anyone in a chair, a subpoena to a hearing will.