Former FDA chief says Taylor Farms' request to delay recall was unusual
Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CBS that Taylor Farms' appeal to the White House to postpone a cyclospora recall announcement was not standard practice.
Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CBS’s Face the Nation that it is not normal for a food producer to ask the White House to intervene in a recall. He was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that Taylor Farms had contacted the White House to seek more time before the agency publicly linked the company to a multi-state cyclospora outbreak.
“It was not standard operating procedure,” Gottlieb said. “And it wasn’t standard operating procedure when I was at FDA.”
Gottlieb added that during his tenure he dealt with lettuce and spinach outbreaks but never received a request from the White House to delay a recall, noting that the administration’s role was limited to briefings.
According to the newspaper report, Taylor Farms representatives asked the White House to arrange a call with FDA officials, arguing that investigators lacked definitive laboratory evidence linking the company’s products to the outbreak and that the government was overstating the firm’s responsibility. The company reportedly sought the meeting after executives said they had not received clear guidance from the FDA on the evidence or the scope of a possible recall.
The recall, initially issued by Taylor Farms de Mexico for iceberg lettuce, has been complicated by conflicting FDA statements about test results. The agency first announced that lettuce not covered by the recall tested positive for cyclospora, then retracted the finding as a false positive, while maintaining that the recall remained in effect.
Taylor Farms posted a statement on its website saying the FDA had apologized and that no positive product test for cyclospora had been identified, later clarifying that the recall continued and that it would not source iceberg lettuce from central Mexico this growing season.
Health officials have faced criticism over the handling of the outbreak, which has affected thousands of people and can cause severe gastrointestinal illness.