FAQ: Food Recall and Foodborne Outbreaks

Rarely a week goes by in the last few months without another headline about contaminated produce, a multistate illness cluster, or a company voluntarily pulling a product from shelves. This year's cyclosporiasis outbreak, tied to iceberg lettuce, has become the clearest example: as of early September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had confirmed thousands of domestically acquired cases, with more than 1,000 hospitalizations and 2 deaths reported.^1,2 But a recall and an outbreak are not the same thing, and understanding how the two intersect—and diverge—helps explain why headlines can look alarming even when the underlying food-safety system is working as intended.