Cyclospora Jamboree
My tummy doesn’t feel so good, C F
Trouble underneath the hood. G7 C
Was it something that I ate? Was it C F
Dirty lettuce on my plate? ‘Cause it’s G7 C
Every day, a new disease, C Dm
Taylor-made for you and me, by G7 C
RFK and GOP. C Dm
Cyclospora jamboree! G7 C
C F G7 C
Quality from the FDA used to
Keep the dirty little things at bay.
No more tracking pathogens, we’re
Making diarrhea great again.
Regulations for the birds. Your
Veggies come with little turds.
RFK and the GOP,
Cyclospora jamboree!
Cut the vaccines, cut the jabs,
No more testing, no more labs.
Very great now! Tell your friends, we’ve got
Old diseases back again, but they’re
Making money, what’s the harm
A little sewage on the farm
RFK and the GOP,
Cyclospora jamboree!
I remember, used to be
World’s greatest CDC.
Now the plan is do away
with the socialistic EPA, let’s
Do away with public health.
Say goodbye to public wealth.
RFK and GOP,
Cyclospora jamboree!
Playing pathogen roulette.
Are you feeling healthy yet?
You’ll never see apology from
RFK or the GOP.
They never show the least regret.
Let us see you don’t forget
RFK and the GOP,
Cyclospora jamboree!
Happy now? Are you happy now?
Lyrics ©Doug Hendren 2026
[parody of “Jamaica Farewell” by Irving Burgie, c.1955]
What’s it about? Under the second Trump administration, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has made a remarkable mess out of public health in the United States. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy has oversight over our major federal health agencies, including the CDC, FDA, NIH, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Since 2025, American trust in the US public health agencies has declined sharply. This is a sharp contrast from the high reputation of the CDC a decade earlier.
Kennedy’s well-known opposition to vaccines has significantly reduced the delivery of childhood vaccinations in the US, both by reducing the official recommended schedule of vaccines, and by fostering public suspicion and distrust of vaccines in general. These changes have already resulted in thousands of preventable cases of infectious disease. Two recent measles-related deaths in Lancaster County, PA were the first recorded in Pennsylvania in 35 years.
What caused the cyclospora outbreak of 2026? The American food supply has long been protected by the “FoodNet” program, a collaboration between the CDC, the USDA, and state health departments. The program has successfully tracked eight dangerous pathogens for the past 30 years, including cyclospora, and kept them out of grocery stores and out of our kitchens. In 2025, however, the Trump administration scaled back the program, limiting surveillance to just e.coli and salmonella. As a result, North America has suffered the largest cyclospora outbreak in many years. It has caused thousands of illnesses in the lower 48 states, and at least two known deaths to date. It has been traced largely to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms in Mexico.
Cyclospora is a parasite associated with human feces or sewage, and can be found on berries and other foods as well, if not properly grown or handled.
In medical school, I was taught that public health, clean and food and water are much more important factors in our health than all the amazing (and costly!) medical and surgical innovations of recent decades. I can also remember classmates in the 1950s crippled from polio, which was eliminated in the US years ago by an aggressive vaccination approach. The risk / benefit ratio of good quality vaccines is one of the pillars of public health in the modern world. Undermining public confidence in known, highly effective vaccine programs, and rolling back infectious disease surveillance of our food supply, are remarkably irrational and reckless abuses of office by Mr. Kennedy, and a real threat to American public health.
On a global scale, dismantling the highly successful USAID program in February 2025 has caused a reported 700,000 deaths in the first year, and is on track to reach an estimated 14 million deaths by 2030. This is a prime example of America’s abdication of world leadership under the Trump administration.
Diarrhea Summer: brought to you by Trump, Big Ag and the Climate Crisis.
