Usda Cyclospora Research Projects Shelved Amid Funding Cuts And Relocations

The Trump administration is shuttering research projects key to the federal government’s fight against cyclospora, the foodborne parasite sickening thousands of Americans this summer.

Two of the three projects that represent nearly all of the Agriculture Department’s study of the parasite were defunded by Congress earlier this year, according to the agency. The third is slated to move from Maryland to Iowa this fall as part of a sweeping USDA reorganization. Even though that project still has money, every scientist working on the parasite has declined to relocate, according to three people familiar with the plans and documents shared with POLITICO, granted anonymity to discuss personnel issues.

The hollowing-out of all three projects, which has not been previously reported, is expected to hinder vital food safety research at a time when Americans are increasingly worried that they can’t trust the food supply.

USDA is directing blame to Congress for zeroing out funds for two of the projects once housed at the agency’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center just outside Washington. But the department’s broader relocation effort is also raising questions about the Trump administration’s work to overhaul vital research amid public health threats like cyclospora, salmonella and E. coli.

“We know so little, and I think that that's been very frustrating to consumers,” said Kalmia Kniel, who studied with the BARC parasite scientists before becoming a professor researching cyclospora at the University of Delaware. Without BARC, “no one can work very fast. We don't have the models, we don't have these surrogates like we would want to have them, and we want to be able to do the research.”

More than 17,000 people have been sickened by cyclospora this summer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The FDA is investigating multiple outbreaks of the parasite, including one that has sickened more than 11,000 people across 20 states. While scientific research couldn’t prevent the current outbreak, it could help investigators find the culprit faster next time — or prevent an outbreak in the first place.

The Trump administration has said that BARC, a 6,500-acre complex where researchers study nutrition, animal health and food safety, is too expensive to keep open. USDA officials have also said that the goal of the reorganization is to move the department’s employees closer to the people they serve, and that research, like that in the labs that conduct cyclospora research, will be uninterrupted.

A USDA spokesperson blamed Congress for the funding cuts, and said, “None of the research has been disrupted, and research will continue without disruption.”

“Congress did not appropriate funding for the two BARC research projects referenced in the FY2026 Agriculture Appropriations Act,” the USDA spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service “is working with research leaders to ensure an orderly transition of programs.”

Spokespeople for Republican and Democratic appropriators in the House and Senate who oversee the funding for the parasite research did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“We're basically not allowed to continue any research on that beyond trying to preserve the samples that we already have from previous outbreaks,” said a third USDA employee who worked on defunded cyclospora research that was done at BARC. “We see this as an enormous opportunity, this current outbreak, to have really a lot of samples that could help us understand these outbreaks better.”

The scientists tasked with researching foodborne parasites, including cyclospora, are retiring, leaving ARS instead of relocating or being reassigned to work on different projects, according to two USDA employees familiar with the issue.

“They will have no parasitologists,” said the first USDA employee. “There will be a big knowledge gap.”

The changes will make it more difficult for private institutions to carry out similar research as they rely on cyclospora specimens and surrogates supplied by ARS. Kniel, who relies on surrogates from BARC for her cyclospora research, said the lab functioned as a critical training ground for future scientists, hosting interns and students and collaborating with researchers across the country.

“The bigger impact is that there are very few people in the world that study these [parasites],” said Joelle Mosso, associate vice president for science growers at the Western Growers Association, a trade group representing produce farmers. “It’s not just replacing the lab. It takes decades to build expertise.”

Other federal agencies investigating the outbreak also rely on ARS for assistance in understanding how the parasite spreads, but USDA’s scientists are already having to turn down requests for assistance.

The federal government completed a $32 million renovation of BARC’s food safety lab in 2022, and the new locations are not expected to be as modernized or updated, according to two USDA employees.

While USDA’s stated intention is for the research to be conducted at new locations, unions representing workers have pointed to internal documents showing that the department expects as many as a quarter of all USDA employees to quit instead of moving to new offices.

Moving the research alone will be disruptive, USDA employees and food safety advocates say.

“The food safety lab at BARC [has] isolates that are in minus 80 degree freezers that they're going to have to figure out how to transport,” said Barbara Kowalcyk, an associate professor at George Washington’s Milken Institute of Public Health. “Do you want them shipping highly pathogenic strains of bacteria in a truck across the country?”

The integrity of the research could also be compromised in the new labs by environmental factors including humidity, Kowalcyk said.

Cyclospora is also one of the more difficult foodborne illnesses to track down, public health experts say. Samples are retrieved from human feces, and it’s difficult for scientists to work with them in a lab.

“Cyclospora is a uniquely challenging organism to deal with,” said Susan Mayne, former director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “Our science is less sophisticated and less advanced.”

While BARC scientists are being asked to relocate within a few weeks, USDA management has told them that their research equipment may not follow for months, leaving them effectively unable to continue their work, according to three people familiar with the planning.