In the space of five days this October, three health departments opened investigations into Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) infections tied to animals at fall attractions: five confirmed cases, four of them hospitalized, at Bengtson’s Pumpkin Farm in Homer Glen, Illinois; five confirmed cases at Brookshire Farmsin San Luis Obispo, California, which has closed; and a cluster of sick children Dallas County is investigating in connection with the petting zoo at the State Fair of Texas. None of this is new. What follows is a short history of how we got here, and the prevention measures that have been written down, revised and re-published for twenty years.

This happens every year, and the numbers are not small.

The Compendium of Measures to Prevent Disease Associated with Animals in Public Settings has been published by the National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians (NASPHV) since 2005. The 2023 revision is summarized in the December 2023 issue of JAVMA, and the full version counts 156 outbreaks involving animals in public settings in the ten years ending in 2020. Those outbreaks caused 6,388 illnesses, 1,233 hospitalizations and 10 deaths. The full version also notes that outbreaks are only part of it: in a Minnesota study of non-outbreak illnesses linked to animal agriculture, 28 percent of the STEC patients had visited a fair, petting zoo, agritourism farm or similar venue, and six developed HUS.

I started tracking these outbreaks on Fair-Safety.com years ago. The outbreak list there runs back to the early 1990s, but it stops in 2015 and still points readers to the 2017 Compendium. It is overdue for an update, and this post is the start of it. Here is a selection of the U.S. E. coli outbreaks, old and new:

A selection, not a complete list. Sources are linked in each row: Fair-Safety.com outbreak summaries, CDC MMWR, state and county health departments, OutbreakDatabase.com and news reports. Counts are as last reported by the investigating agency.

The list could be much longer. Fair-Safety.com also documents outbreaks of Cryptosporidium, Campylobacterand Salmonella at farms, fairs and zoos here and abroad, and Food Poison Journal has a longer history of petting zoo and fair outbreaks.

What the outbreaks have in common.

Read twenty-five years of these investigations and the same facts keep showing up. The Compendium pulls them together, and they explain this October as well as they explain 2004.

Healthy-looking animals carry it. Cattle, goats and sheep are the usual sources. They carry STEC without getting sick and shed it intermittently, and young animals – the calves, kids and lambs that draw children – shed more than adults. Stress from transport, crowding and handling increases shedding.

You do not have to touch an animal. Fur, saliva, railings, bedding, sawdust, hay bales, manure on a fence, dust, a stroller wheel, a shoe: all have carried the bacteria in past outbreaks. STEC can survive in soil for months. Minnesota’s 2019 State Fair cases included people who never touched an animal, and Connecticut’s 2016 goat farm outbreak spread to people who had only been near someone who visited.

Testing the animals afterward rarely settles it. Because shedding comes and goes, the Compendium warns that a negative test does not mean the animal was not shedding earlier. In San Diego in 2019, every petting zoo animal, every pony and 32 environmental samples tested negative – after a child had died. The Compendium does not recommend routine screening for this reason. Prevention has to assume the animals are positive.

Temporary exhibits are the riskiest. The Compendium says temporary and seasonal exhibits are particularly vulnerable to design flaws, and so are working farms that were never designed for public events. The full version gives examples that read like this month’s news – animal displays added to festivals, farm stands, pick-your-own farms and Christmas tree lots – and lists the usual problems: inadequate barriers, surfaces that cannot be cleaned, insufficient plumbing, missing signs and too few handwashing stations. The traveling vendor that sets up for a weekend is exactly the operation least likely to have running water at the exit.

Hand sanitizer is not handwashing. In outbreak after outbreak, the Compendium says, handwashing has been protective: lathering with soap and water lowered the risk, while feeding animals without washing afterward and drying hands on clothing raised it. The full version adds that soap and water is still preferred over sanitizer, which does not work equally well on all pathogens or on dirty hands. The 2005 Fresno petting zoo had alcohol sanitizer. So, twenty years later, did the 2025 Arizona State Fair.

Food and animals do not mix. Contamination of food and drinks by people who have just touched animals has caused outbreaks, and the full Compendium adds that buying food at a farm visit and eating sticky foods like ice cream and cotton candy have been associated with STEC illness. Feeding animals and then eating without washing raises the risk. Some petting zoos still sell feed in ice cream cones, which the Compendium specifically says not to do.

Young children are the most at risk. Children under five put their hands in their mouths, sit on the ground and get close to the animals, and they are the most likely to develop HUS. The 2023 Compendium says preweaned calves, lambs, goat kids, reptiles and live poultry are not appropriate where groups at high risk are expected – and on a fall weekend at a pumpkin patch, or a school field-trip day at a fair, that is a lot of the crowd. Add that young animals shed STEC more than adults, and it is no surprise that so many of the rows in that table end with a toddler on dialysis. More on HUS is at about-hus.com.

How to prevent them – the Compendium’s playbook.

None of this is a secret. The Compendium is free, it has been around in some form since 2005, and the 2023 edition is posted by CDC and published by the AVMA. Washington’s Department of Health has turned it into a practical guide for fairs. The core recommendations for operators:

• Tell visitors the risk before they go in. The Compendium calls educating visitors “of utmost importance”: awareness of the risk was protective in the 2004 North Carolina State Fair outbreak. That means signs, staff at the entrance, and information sent home before school field trips.
• Divide the venue into three zones. Animal areas, transition areas at every entrance and exit, and non-animal areas where food is sold and eaten. No animals except service animals in non-animal areas.
• Put soap, running water and paper towels at every exit. Enough sinks for peak crowds, at a height children can reach, and as close to the exit as possible – not across the midway.
• Staff the exit. A staff member at the exit reminding visitors to wash is one of the interventions the Compendium cites as improving handwashing.
• Keep food, drinks, bottles, pacifiers, sippy cups and toys out of animal areas. Provide stroller parking at the entrance.
• Control feeding. Allow it only where contact is controlled, never sell feed in edible containers, and keep feed and water bins away from the public.
• Keep the youngest children away from the riskiest animals. Children under five should not have direct contact with preweaned calves and similar high-risk animals, and should be supervised at all times around the rest.
• Design for one-way traffic and avoid overcrowding. Use double barriers where contact is not intended, remove manure promptly and keep manure tools and piles out of public reach.
• Use a veterinarian and keep records. Exhibit only healthy animals, keep sick animals and herds with recent diarrhea out, and keep records of where animals came from and where they have been, so investigators can trace them.
• Do not sell raw milk or unpasteurized cider. The full Compendium says their sale or distribution should be prohibited.

For parents and visitors, the short version: wash with soap and water as soon as you leave the animal area and before eating, even if you think you did not touch anything; do not eat, drink or let children use pacifiers or bottles in animal areas; do not let small children sit or play on the ground there; wash after handling strollers and shoes that went into the pens; and if a child develops bloody diarrhea within ten days of a farm or fair visit, see a doctor and tell them about the visit. Antibiotics and anti-diarrheal drugs are generally not recommended for suspected STEC in children.

Recommendations are not requirements.

Here is the uncomfortable part. As the full Compendium acknowledges, no U.S. federal law addresses the risk of disease transmission where animals and the public mix, and only some states regulate things like handwashing stations. The Compendium tells agencies to work to ensure compliance and to build its recommendations into regulations, and the full version notes that studies keep finding the recommendations are not fully followed. After Arizona’s outbreak, a bill requiring handwashing, signage and supervision at petting zoos died in the legislature; the Arizona State Fair and the Maricopa County Fair dropped direct animal contact on their own. Voluntary decisions by a few fairs are not a standard.

Every state should turn the Compendium into a rule: soap and running water at every animal-area exit, staff at the exit, no food in animal areas, no feed in cones, records of animal sources, and a public notice requirement when a cluster is identified. Every health department that opens one of these investigations should publish the case count, ages, hospitalizations and HUS cases on a schedule, sequence every isolate, and put the final report online, so the next operator can learn from it. Twenty-five years of outbreaks is enough data.

Frequently asked questions

Can you get E. coli at a petting zoo without touching an animal? Yes. Outbreaks have been traced to railings, bedding, sawdust, hay bales, dust and contaminated shoes and strollers, and STEC can survive in soil for months.

Is hand sanitizer enough after a petting zoo? No. The full 2023 Compendium says soap and running water is preferred, because sanitizers do not work well on dirty hands or equally well against all pathogens.

Who is most at risk? Children under five, adults over 65, pregnant people and people with weakened immune systems. Young children are the most likely to develop hemolytic uremic syndrome.

Are petting zoos regulated? There is no federal law addressing disease risk at animal exhibits. Some states require handwashing stations; most rely on voluntary guidance like the Compendium.

On Tuesday afternoon, October 27, the County of San Luis Obispo Department of Public Health announcedfive confirmed cases of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) and an investigation into a possible link to Brookshire Farms, the pumpkin patch, corn maze and Christmas tree farm on Los Osos Valley Road. The farm has closed voluntarily. Tuesday night, FOX 4 in Dallas reported that Dallas County Health and Human Services is lab-testing a cluster of STEC infections in children and investigating whether they came from the petting zoo at the State Fair of Texas. Add the five confirmed cases at Bengtson’s Pumpkin Farm in Homer Glen, Illinois, four of them hospitalized, and that is three investigations, in three states, tied to animal attractions at fall events – all made public in the five days since October 23. Every October I write some version of this post. This year I am writing it three times over.

What San Luis Obispo County has said.

Five confirmed STEC infections. A suspected exposure period at Brookshire Farms that was first announced as October 16 through 18 and then, in a 4:00 p.m. update, widened to October 16 through 26 – the entire last ten days the farm was open. The source of the infections is under investigation. The county is telling anyone who visited during that window and develops cramping and bloody diarrhea, typically three to ten days after the visit, to call their doctor, and it notes that children under 10 face the greatest risk of complications. County Health Officer Dr. Christy Mulkerin urged anyone exposed and symptomatic to seek medical attention immediately. The farm is cooperating, and, according to KSBY, its owner has said a direct link to the farm has not been confirmed.

One housekeeping note for the county: the updated release widens the window to October 26, but the subheadline and the Spanish-language version still say October 16 through 18. A family that reads the Spanish release, visited on October 22 and has a child with bloody diarrhea today may conclude they are outside the window. Fix it.

What the county has not said.

Ages. Hospitalizations. Whether anyone has hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). The serotype – O157 or a non-O157 STEC. Whether the five isolates have been sequenced and match. Most importantly, what at the farm is suspected. A pumpkin patch is not a single exposure. According to the farm’s promotional listings, Brookshire offers hayrides, grain-cart rides, pedal carts, a jumping pillow, duck races, a playground, a hay climb, a hay maze and a corn maze, and a U-pick directory lists farm animals, school tours, birthday parties, fresh eggs and a picnic area where families can eat their own food. Was there animal contact? Where were the handwashing stations relative to the animals and the kettle corn? Were school groups on the property between October 16 and 26? Those answers tell parents and physicians where to look, and they cost the county nothing to release.

The State Fair of Texas: a “cluster,” children in the hospital, and a fair that says it has not been notified.

According to FOX 4, Dallas County Health and Human Services confirmed it is lab-testing a cluster of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli cases affecting children of a range of ages, is still interviewing families, and is investigating whether the State Fair petting zoo is the source. The county is not yet calling it an outbreak. At least two families told the station their children are hospitalized in Dallas, and Children’s Medical Center Dallas says it has seen an uptick in cases. The county has not released a case count, ages, hospitalizations, whether any child has HUS, or the serotype.

The fair’s own website describes the petting zoo in Little Lone Stars Land as a place to get close to emus, zebras, pigs and goats, with a nursery of sows, ewes, nanny goats and their young – and it advertises that fairgoers can feed the animals. The fair’s statement to FOX 4 says it has not received official notification, that it follows CDC-recommended precautions at its animal exhibits, and that no precaution can eliminate every risk. That last line is true. It is also why the precautions have to be the right ones – soap and running water at the exit, no food or bottles in the pen, someone watching the children – and why the fair should be asked now, in writing, what exactly was in place.

This is not the State Fair of Texas’s first brush with this. In the mid-2000s, after a run of petting zoo outbreaks around the country, the fair scrapped its Children’s Barnyard petting zoo when insurers raised rates; at the time, that petting zoo relied on hand-sanitizing gel and signs. Two decades later, the Arizona State Fair’s petting zoo outbreak taught the same lesson about sanitizer, and the Arizona State Fair has dropped direct animal contact for 2026. The State Fair of Texas did not.

Dallas County should do what I am asking of San Luis Obispo and Will counties: publish a case count, ages, hospitalizations and any HUS; issue a health alert to North Texas pediatricians and emergency departments; open a survey for fairgoers; sample the animals and the environment before the animals are gone; and sequence everything. The fair runs for weeks and draws enormous crowds, and once it closes the petting zoo and livestock animals scatter to their home farms. Every day of delay is a day of lost samples.

Brookshire closed the whole farm. Bengtson’s closed only the petting zoo. The State Fair has closed nothing.

The responses are worth comparing. In Illinois, Bengtson’s closed its petting zoo on October 23 and kept the rides, food stands and corn maze open with the health department’s blessing. Animal and environmental samples were taken on October 26, results are expected around November 5, and, as I wrote this morning, more than 200 visitors have filled out the county’s symptom survey. In California, Brookshire shut down entirely, in the last week of pumpkin season, while the county figures out what happened. That is a costly decision for a family farm, and it is the right one. It does not tell us whether the source is an animal, the environment or something sold on site. It does mean no one else is being exposed while the county finds out. In Texas, nothing has closed, and the fair says it has not even been officially notified.

Sources: SLO County Public Health release (October 27, 2026, as updated 4:00 p.m.); KSBY (October 27); FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth (October 27); Will County Health Department statements as reported by The Herald-News (October 26). Read October 27.

These are not food outbreaks, and food inspections will not solve them.

When STEC follows a farm visit, the vehicle is rarely a menu item. It is manure – on a goat’s coat, a pen rail, a hay bale, a stroller wheel, a shoe, the hand that then holds a cup of cider. Ruminants carry these bacteria without looking sick and shed them intermittently, which is why the Compendium of Measures to Prevent Disease Associated with Animals in Public Settings warns that a negative animal sample taken days after the fact does not clear the pen. The record goes back decades: the 2004 North Carolina State Fair, a Tennessee farming camp in 2022, the Willow Grove pumpkin patch in Longview, Washington, and last fall’s Arizona State Fair petting zoo outbreak, which sickened 18 people, hospitalized 11 and left six with HUS. The fixes have not changed either: soap and running water, not hand sanitizer, at every exit from an animal area; animal areas kept away from where people eat; no food, bottles or pacifiers near the animals; and someone watching to make sure small children actually wash.

Are the three connected?

Nothing released so far suggests they are. Three venues in California, Illinois and Texas, in the same few weeks of the busiest season of the year, is what the calendar looks like when hundreds of thousands of families with young children get close to livestock in October. Whole genome sequencing will answer the question, and all three counties should say whether their isolates have been uploaded to PulseNet.

What the counties should do now.

San Luis Obispo specifically: correct the exposure dates in every version of the release. Publish ages, hospitalizations and any HUS, and update them on a set schedule. Say whether the farm had animal contact and whether animals and surfaces have been sampled. Open a visitor survey the way Will County did, and push it to the schools that brought classes between October 16 and 26. Alert local pediatricians and emergency departments that bloody diarrhea in a child who visited the farm is STEC until proven otherwise – and that antibiotics and anti-diarrheals are a bad idea in that child. Sequence the isolates and publish the results, whatever they show.

For families: if your child visited Brookshire Farms between October 16 and 26, Bengtson’s on or after September 29, or the State Fair of Texas this fall, and develops bloody diarrhea, severe cramps, decreased urination, unusual paleness or lethargy, see a doctor and tell them about the farm visit. HUS can develop a week or more after the diarrhea starts. Background on E. coli, HUS and staying safe around farm animals is available.

Frequently asked questions

How many people are sick in the Brookshire Farms E. coli outbreak? Five confirmed STEC cases as of October 27, 2026. The county has not released ages, hospitalizations or HUS cases.

What is the exposure period? October 16 through 26, 2026, according to the county’s 4:00 p.m. update. Some versions of the release still show October 16 through 18.

Is Brookshire Farms open? No. The farm closed voluntarily while San Luis Obispo County Public Health investigates.

Has the source been found? No. The county says the source is under investigation and has not said what at the farm is suspected.

Is the State Fair of Texas petting zoo linked to E. coli? Dallas County Health and Human Services is investigating whether a cluster of STEC cases in children came from the petting zoo. No case count or confirmation of a source has been released, and the county is not yet calling it an outbreak.

Are the Brookshire, Bengtson’s and State Fair of Texas cases connected? There is no indication they are. Whole genome sequencing will show whether any of the isolates match.

As of October 26, 2026, the Will County Health Department counts five laboratory-confirmed Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infections possibly linked to visits to Bengtson’s Pumpkin Farm in Homer Glen, Illinois, on or after September 29. Four of the five were hospitalized, the patients are between four and 38 years old, no deaths have been reported, and more than 200 visitors have filled out the county’s symptom survey. The petting zoo is closed; the rest of the farm is open. Marler Clark has spoken with the family of one of the children who was sickened and is investigating.

We are investigating on behalf of one of the families.

I will say this once and briefly. I have spoken with the family of one of the children sickened in this outbreak, and the firm is investigating. I am not going to describe the child, the family or the illness, now or later, beyond what the family chooses to make public. I have represented children sickened at pumpkin patches, petting zoos and fairs for a long time, including at a pumpkin patch in Longview, Washington, and the pattern of these outbreaks is familiar enough that the questions worth asking are already known. I listed them on Friday. What follows is what has changed since.

Four of the five people sickened were hospitalized, and that was not in Friday’s announcement.

When the county announced the investigation on October 23, it gave five lab-confirmed cases and nothing about ages or hospital care. The Herald-News reported Monday that four of the five were hospitalized, that at least three have been discharged, and that the county does not know the status of the fourth. The ages run from four to 38, and the patients do not all live in Will County, which communications manager Kevin Juday said is part of why the cases took time to surface and to be linked. Four hospitalizations out of five confirmed cases is a severe ratio for Shiga toxin-producing E. coli. It can mean a virulent strain, or it can mean that only the sickest people have been tested so far. Either way it belongs in the public notice, because it tells parents how seriously to take a child’s bloody diarrhea this week.

More than 200 survey responses means five is a floor, not a count.

The county asked anyone who visited on or after September 29 and became ill to complete a confidential online survey. More than 200 people have. Most of them will not turn out to be E. coli, and a survey is not a stool culture. But a petting zoo at a popular pumpkin farm in the Chicago suburbs during the busiest four weeks of its year sees tens of thousands of visitors, and the people who were sick two or three weeks ago and did not see a doctor will never be counted. Five confirmed cases spread across more than one county, four of them in the hospital, is the top of an iceberg whose size depends on how many of those 200 the county follows up with a call and a test request.

Sources: Will County Health Department statements as reported by The Herald-News (October 26, 2026), WGN and NBC Chicago (October 23), read October 27. Check: four hospitalized of five confirmed is 80 percent; the confirmed count has not moved between October 23 and October 26 while surveys passed 200.

The samples taken Monday are the ones that matter, and a negative animal does not clear the pen.

On Monday, October 26, county environmental health staff swabbed railings, hand-washing stations and tables near the food service area and the petting zoo, and a veterinarian sampled the animals. Results are expected in about ten days. Two things about those results. First, ruminants shed E. coli O157 and the other Shiga toxin producers intermittently, so a goat that is negative on October 26 can have been shedding on October 10; the Compendium of Measures to Prevent Disease Associated with Animals in Public Settings says as much and warns against reading a negative as exoneration. Second, the question is not only whether an animal is positive but whether the animal isolate, the railing isolate and the five patient isolates are the same strain by whole genome sequencing. Illinois has the lab to do that. The county should say now that sequencing is planned and that the results, positive or negative, will be published.

A clean food-service inspection does not clear a petting zoo.

The farm’s statement leans on the October 21 inspection of its food service areas and vendors, which found no problems, and the county’s food-preparation tests have come back negative so far. Good. That is also beside the point. In the petting zoo outbreaks on the public record, from the 2004 North Carolina State Fair through the pumpkin patches in Washington and Minnesota, the vehicle was rarely a food item. It was manure on a rail, on a shoe, on a stroller wheel, on a hand that held a sippy cup, in sawdust that blew across a walkway. The county itself says it does not normally regulate petting zoos and is involved because the farm holds food permits. That is the regulatory architecture, not the county’s fault, and it is why the Monday swabs of railings and hand-wash stations are more important than any food test.

What the farm’s statement says, and what it leaves out.

In its statement to NBC Chicago, Bengtson’s says testing is under way, no source has been confirmed, its first thoughts are with the sick and their families, and the petting zoo is staffed, has hand-washing sinks at the entrance and exit and cleans its pens daily. Rides, attractions, food stands and vendors remain open. The statement does not mention that four people were hospitalized. It does not say how many visitors came through the petting zoo between September 29 and the day it closed, whether the farm will contact ticket holders, whether the animals have ever been tested before, or where the animals came from and under what contract. The county’s environmental health director, Sean Conners, says the farm can safely keep operating. I do not quarrel with that call for the rides and the corn maze. I would want the petting zoo to stay closed until the animal and environmental results are back and sequenced, not merely until the season ends.

What should happen in the next ten days.

Post a case definition and a weekly update, with ages, hospitalizations and any hemolytic uremic syndrome, so parents are not learning the hospitalization count from a newspaper. Call every one of the 200 survey respondents who reported bloody diarrhea and get them tested. Sequence every patient, animal and environmental isolate and publish the comparison. Ask the farm to notify ticket holders directly. And when the results are in, whatever they show, put the whole file on the county’s website, because the next pumpkin farm’s operator should be able to read it. The consumer version of this post, with symptoms, incubation and when to see a doctor, is on Food Poison Journal; the prevention material for families and operators is at Fair-Safety.com; and what HUS is and why it follows E. coli in young children is at about-hus.com.

How many people are sick from Bengtson’s Pumpkin Farm E. coli? Five laboratory-confirmed cases as of October 26, 2026, ages four to 38, four of them hospitalized and at least three discharged. More than 200 visitors have submitted symptom surveys that the county is still reviewing.

Has the source of the Bengtson’s E. coli outbreak been found? No. Food-preparation tests are negative so far. Animals, railings, hand-wash stations and tables were sampled October 26, with results expected in about ten days.

Is Bengtson’s Pumpkin Farm open? Yes, except for the petting zoo, which the farm closed voluntarily on October 23.

On October 26, 2026, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion to the Acting General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services titled Public Disclosure of Supply Chain Information in Foodborne Illness Outbreaks and Recalls. HHS asked a simple question: is FDA authorized by law to tell the public who is in the supply chain of a food that is making people sick?

The answer, in eight pages, is the argument I have been making for years. FDA’s current regulations mostly say no. The statute says FDA can change that. And FDA has not.

That matters right now. Fifty people are sick in the chicken wrap E. coli O157:H7 outbreak, reference #1421, that FDA and FSIS are investigating together. The public learned the wraps were Trader Joe’s Tarragon Chicken Salad Wraps from a lawsuit my firm filed and from a newspaper, not from either agency. In July, FDA told Stop Foodborne Illness that its pending petition on this exact question raised “complex issues.” The government’s own lawyers have now answered the hardest of them.

What the opinion says

First, the problem is FDA’s regulations, not the law. The Trade Secrets Act bars federal employees from disclosing confidential business information only when the disclosure is not “authorized by law,” and a properly issued regulation is enough authorization. FDA’s regulations treat the names and locations of firms in a supply chain as confidential commercial information under 21 CFR 20.61, and they wall that information off. The opinion concludes that, given those regulations, the Trade Secrets Act “largely prevents” FDA from disclosing supply chain information.

Second, the exception FDA leans on barely works. 21 CFR 20.91 lets FDA disclose information to the extent necessary to carry out an enforcement action like a recall. The opinion calls that authority “exceedingly narrow in practice.” It applies only when there is an actual enforcement action. In the opinion’s words, “FDA’s hands are tied before a recall is officially initiated.” And by the time FDA collects the information, it is often no longer “necessary.” The opinion also says the statute “nowhere requires” the case-by-case analysis in FDA’s 2020 consignee guidance, which it calls “arduous.” That is the chicken wrap outbreak in a sentence. The wraps were “proactively removed,” no recall was ever announced, and so nothing was ever disclosed.

Third, FDA can fix it. Section 705(b) of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act lets FDA disseminate information regarding food in situations involving, in the Commissioner’s opinion, “imminent danger to health or gross deception of the consumer.” Combined with FDA’s general rulemaking authority, the opinion concludes, that provision lets FDA amend its regulations to authorize disclosure of supply chain information. Disclosure under such a rule would be “authorized by law” and would not violate the Trade Secrets Act. The opinion adds that this would hardly be a “transformative expansion” of FDA’s power, and that neither the FOIA exemption for commercial information nor the Act’s own trade secret provision stands in the way.

Fourth, in a footnote, the opinion questions whether the identity of a supply chain partner is even the kind of information the Trade Secrets Act protects. Every item the Act lists concerns a company’s internal processes, and who a company buys from or sells to is different in kind. The opinion assumes coverage for purposes of its analysis and notes, fairly, that some appellate courts would likely see it the other way.

Fifth, there is a limit, and I want to be honest about it. The opinion says a regulation “purporting to authorize disclosure after a foodborne illness outbreak has already ended would likely be inconsistent” with section 705(b). The imminent-danger authority is a tool for an open outbreak.

Where disclosure should have happened, and why

The opinion is not an abstraction. Run the outbreaks in my petitions through it and you see exactly where the public was left in the dark, and on what basis it should not have been. FDA, CDC and their partners have named farms, processors and brands at least eight times since 2006 after the product was gone. Here is what happens when they choose not to.

Romaine, fall 2024 (reference #1280). Eighty-nine people sick in fifteen states, thirty-six hospitalized, seven with kidney failure, one dead. FDA closed the investigation with one word: romaine. When the traceback summary was first released, the processor, the grower and the ranch were blacked out. It came out unredacted more than a year later, in stages, and only after three firms in the supply chain signed consents to release their own information. The document showed traceback had converged on a single processor and a single grower. Why it should have been disclosed: while people were getting sick that fall, this was imminent danger by any measure, and a section 705(b) rule would have authorized naming the firms then. Instead, as the opinion confirms, the only route left was the firms’ own consent. The public’s right to know depended on the permission of the companies being named.

Romaine, summer 2026 (reference #1382). Fourteen people sick. For ten weeks the only public record was a single row reading “Not Yet Identified.” On September 10, FDA closed the file, said romaine for the first time, and named no grower and no processor because the lettuce was past shelf life. It never said how many states had cases, how many people were hospitalized, whether anyone developed HUS, or whether traceback converged. Why it should have been disclosed: case counts are not anyone’s trade secret, and FDA published exactly those numbers for a closed romaine outbreak in 2019. Naming the firm after closure is where the opinion’s limit bites, which is precisely why the petition asks FDA to define by rule that an implicated firm’s name is not confidential to begin with.

Salmonella Newport (reference #1403). Posted August 26 with eighty-four cases and the food “not yet identified.” Traceback and sampling began. The count rose to ninety-seven, then 111. On October 21, FDA closed it at 119 cases without ever naming a food. No inspection, no advisory, no CDC notice. Why it should have been disclosed: the name of a food is not confidential commercial information at all. While the count was climbing for two months, this was the textbook open outbreak the opinion says section 705(b) covers. The petition asks FDA to name the suspect food once traceback begins. One hundred nineteen people deserved at least that.

Cantaloupe (reference #1366). Seventy people sick in twenty-five states. FDA said the fruit was likely past shelf life. Yet the importer, Ayco Farms of Pompano Beach, recalled a lot on March 24, 2026, FDA put two Guatemalan growers on import alert, and all three were named. Why this one is the tell: the same year, past-shelf-life romaine got no name. The difference was not the danger. It was whether a recall or an enforcement action happened to attach, which is exactly the narrow 20.91 trigger the opinion describes. And even here, FDA’s executive summary still redacts the states with cases and the other firms in the traceback.

Packaged organic salads (reference #1339). FDA’s own executive summary says traceback converged on a supplier and processor of packaged organic salads, then redacts the name and even the number of traceback legs. Why it should have been disclosed: the work was done and the conclusion reached. All that is missing is a name, and the rule that would require it.

Happy Hens eggs, San Diego County. California named the forty-one stores that received the implicated eggs this September. The federal record named none, and the recalled date codes were packed in August, after nearly every illness. Why FDA could have said the same thing: once a state lawfully publishes the stores, that information has “previously been disclosed in a lawful manner to any member of the public,” one of the exceptions the opinion confirms is authorization by law. FDA did not need a new rule to repeat it. It needed to want to.

Beef kofta, May 2026, and the chicken wraps now. When product is gone, FSIS’s routine is to issue a public health alert naming the establishment. In May it named The Kebab Shop and the producer of beef made four months earlier. In the joint chicken wrap investigation, with fifty sick and the product identified, it has issued nothing. One government, two defaults, and the only difference is who happens to be making the call.

What I am changing in the Outbreak Firm Disclosure petition

A new disclosure rule, exactly as the opinion describes. The petition already asked FDA to declare by rule that an implicated firm’s name is not confidential commercial information, and to make distribution information disclosable whenever an outbreak food is pulled, whatever the company calls the removal. It now also asks for a new regulation under sections 705(b) and 701(a). That regulation would authorize disclosure of the firm’s name, location and distribution information whenever the Commissioner finds an outbreak presents imminent danger. It would also require conforming changes to the three regulations the opinion identifies as the current bars. Each of these three changes is an independent ground. If a court set one aside, the others would still authorize disclosure.

Drawing the line where the opinion draws it, at the outbreak and not the package. The new 705(b) rule applies while an outbreak is open. That means while people are still getting sick or cases are still being found, or while the food or an ingredient may still be in commerce, in homes or in other products. Past its shelf-life date or not. When an investigation closes, naming the firms rests instead on the rule defining what counts as confidential, on the case law holding that a business’s name is not commercial information in itself, and on FDA’s existing exceptions. I took out language that said section 705(b) carries no requirement that an investigation still be open. The petition now cites the opinion’s limit against itself, because a petition that hides the hard part is not worth filing.

“Use the authority you already have” now means the authority the opinion confirms. Until a rule is final, the petition asks FDA to name firms whenever one of four existing authorizations applies. The opinion confirms each counts as authorization by law: information already lawfully disclosed to the public, a court order, the firm’s consent, and an enforcement action under 20.91. The first one is bigger than it sounds. When a retailer tells a national newspaper which product it pulled and in how many states, that information is public. Once Trader Joe’s did exactly that, FDA’s own regulation let it post the same facts on its outbreak table. It still has not.

Two smaller changes. Because the opinion reads 20.91 as requiring an actual enforcement action, the petition no longer asks FDA to treat a whole genome sequencing match as one by interpretation. That request moves into the rule. And because the legal question is now answered, the petition asks FDA to respond with a proposed rule, not another interim letter.

What I am changing in the Recall Consignee List petition

The petition still asks FDA to do by rule what USDA has done since 2008: publish the stores, restaurants, schools, hospitals and other places that received food in every Class I recall, when the recall is announced. It now rests that rule on two authorities instead of one: 20.91, and section 705(b) as the opinion reads it. A Class I recall already means there is a reasonable probability the food will cause serious harm or death. So the petition asks that, when FDA classifies a food recall as Class I, it also state whether the Commissioner finds imminent danger. That way publishing the store list no longer turns on a case-by-case finding that it is “necessary.”

It also uses the opinion to support two requests already in the petition. One is dropping the guidance’s packaging test, the analysis the opinion called “arduous.” The other is confirming that pulling an outbreak food is a recall no matter what the company calls it, because the opinion confirms 20.91 does nothing until a recall is “officially initiated.” And it explains why the rule fits within the opinion’s limit. The list is published when the recall is announced and updated while it is underway, which is when consumers can still use it and health departments are still finding cases.

What is not changing

Both petitions still ask for the same core things. They ask for a written standard with the exemption closed and the burden on the firm. They ask for one business day for a firm to correct errors and a prominent correction if a named firm is cleared. They reach the whole supply chain, from grower to retailer. They ask for case counts and the suspect food while an investigation is open, and an honest account of the traceback when it closes. They still go in together, on the same day. Both now also copy the HHS Acting General Counsel, who asked for the opinion. I still support the Stop Foodborne Illness petition. And S. 4974, passed by the Senate in September, is now less a precondition than a supplement. FDA does not need to wait for Congress.

Read them. Tell me what you think.

If you would like the revised drafts, email me at bmarler@marlerclark.com and ask for the petitions. Please get comments back to me before October 30, 2026.

For years FDA has said its hands were tied. The Justice Department has now said who tied them. FDA did, in its own regulations, and it can untie them by rule. Fifty people are sick from a wrap whose maker the government will not name. The law no longer gives FDA an excuse. Let’s see whether it will act.

A month ago, I posted drafts of two citizen petitions I intend to file with the FDA – one asking for a warning statement on cheese made from unpasteurized milk, the other on raw and lightly cooked sprouts – and asked you to tell me what I got wrong. On October 3 I thanked you and asked for more. You kept sending it. Thank you, again.

Many of you waded through tens of thousands of words of regulatory prose and sent back corrections, sources and arguments. Some of you agreed with me and some of you did not, and both kinds of comments made the petitions better. A few of the changes since the first drafts:

• The cheese warning now says the bacteria “can cause serious illness or death.” The record – two deaths in the 2017 Vulto Creamery listeriosis outbreak, and hemolytic uremic syndrome in at least six people in the four recent cheese outbreaks – supports saying so, and FDA already uses those exact words in the same regulation for very low-calorie protein products.
• A reader asked what “uncontroversial” means in the First Amendment test that applies to required label disclosures. It was a fair question, and the cheese petition now answers it, including the case least favorable to me.
• A restaurant culinary director with twenty-one years in professional kitchens showed me how the FDA Food Code already requires a menu advisory for a hamburger cooked to order but not for the raw sprouts on the same plate. The sprout petition now asks FDA to close that gap.
• Each petition now has an Appendix A showing the statement on a retail package, on a placard at a deli or sandwich counter, and on an online product page, so you can see what the warnings would look like.

Why the cheese petition matters more today than it did a month ago

The petitions were never about one outbreak, but the outbreaks keep making the case. In late September, CDC and FDA linked Graziers raw milk cheese from Sierra Nevada Cheese Company to an E. coli O26:H11 outbreak: 13 people in nine states, eight hospitalized, three with hemolytic uremic syndrome, and a median age of five. The first person got sick on July 7. FDA contacted the company on September 24 – eleven weeks later. The package told parents that the cheese was aged at least 60 days, which is what federal law requires. It did not tell them what FDA wrote in 2015: that E. coli O157:H7 can survive 60 days of aging in cheddar.

That is the fourth outbreak in thirty-one months linked to raw milk cheese that complied with the 60-day rule – Raw Farm in February 2024 and again in March 2026, and Twin Sisters Creamery in 2025 – for a total of 43 people sickened, 17 hospitalized and at least six with hemolytic uremic syndrome, many of them young children. And on October 5 the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement saying that aged raw milk cheese still poses an infection risk and naming warning labels as a measure pediatricians should support.

In the interest of full disclosure, and as both petitions state, I represent people sickened in the Graziers, Twin Sisters Creamery and Evergreen Fresh Sprouts outbreaks, and I have represented people hospitalized in both Raw Farm outbreaks. On October 6 I filed suit for the family of a child with hemolytic uremic syndrome in the Graziers outbreak.

Neither petition asks FDA to ban anything. Adults who want raw milk cheese or raw sprouts would remain free to buy them. The petitions ask for one sentence on the label, so that what the government already tells people in press releases and on web pages is in front of them when they make the choice.

The revised drafts

• Email me at bmarler@marlerclark.com if you would like to review them.

One more week – here is what I would most like to hear about

• Type size. Both petitions ask for the warning in type no smaller than 8 point, the size FDA requires in the Nutrition Facts panel. Look at the label renderings in the appendices. Is that big enough to be read in a grocery aisle, or should it be larger?
• Cheesemakers and retailers: Is the placard at the cheese case and the deli counter workable? What would it cost you?
• Sprout growers and seed sellers: Does the requirement for seed sold for home sprouting reach the right products, and does the exemption for validated treatment give you a real path off the warning?
• Physicians and public health officials: Have I named the right groups, in the right words?
• Everyone: What information unfavorable to these petitions have I missed? The certification FDA requires obliges me to include it.

Email me at bmarler@marlerclark.com or call 1-800-884-9840 by Friday, October 30, 2026. If you would like the Word version to mark up, ask and I will send it. After I file, FDA will assign each petition a docket number on regulations.gov, where anyone can comment formally, and the agency has 180 days to respond. Pointing out an error now is a lot more useful than pointing it out then.

Thanks again.

Bill