Bill Cassidy Questions RFK Jr.’s Take on Louisiana Cyclosporiasis Surge

On a humid July afternoon in Baton Rouge, Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician‑turned‑lawmaker, stared at a spreadsheet of rising diarrhea cases and shook his head. The numbers were impossible to ignore: 68 confirmed instances of cyclosporiasis in Louisiana alone, roughly twice the amount the state usually sees at this time of year.

“I don’t trust Secretary Kennedy’s assessment,” Cassidy told the USA Today Network, his voice a mix of frustration and urgency. “Just because he says it’s under control doesn’t mean I believe it.” The senator, who now chairs the Senate Health Committee, has formally asked the White House for a detailed briefing on the outbreak.

Across the Capitol, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. offered a very different picture. In a briefing on health‑care fraud earlier that day, he said the situation was “under control” and warned that recent cuts to the CDC’s Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network—known as FoodNet—have hampered the nation’s ability to track such infections.

FoodNet, once a cornerstone of food‑borne disease surveillance, was trimmed back last year. The program no longer has to monitor eight of the ten pathogens it once covered, a shift that public‑health experts say could leave gaps in early detection.

What makes the Louisiana spike especially worrisome is that it appears to be part of a broader national trend. State health departments from Georgia to California have all reported upticks, and the Daily Comet cited “thousands” of Americans now sickened by the parasite. Yet, without the robust data that FoodNet used to provide, the true scope remains hazy.

Local doctors are on high alert. “We’re seeing patients with persistent watery diarrhea, weight loss, and fatigue,” said Dr. Elise Martin, an infectious‑disease specialist at Ochsner Health. “If untreated, cyclosporiasis can linger for weeks.” The standard treatment—a short course of trimethoprim‑sulfamethoxazole—remains effective, but early diagnosis is crucial.

In the meantime, Cassidy is pressing for answers. He wants to know how the CDC is compensating for the surveillance cuts, what steps are being taken to trace the source of the parasite, and whether additional resources are being allocated to affected states.

As the debate on Capitol Hill continues, Louisiana families are left watching their kitchen sinks, grocery receipts, and hospital updates with a wary eye. Whether the outbreak is truly “under control” may soon be decided not by press releases, but by the number of people who recover without a second bout of illness.