😶 The information vacuum

🗣️ Messaging pressure

📊 Blame game shifts

🦠 Public health comms post-COVID

The long tail of a crisis 

The early days of the outbreak were dominated by uncertainty about what was safe to eat and what wasn't, with both social and traditional media filled with speculation and panic-inducing headlines. 

Why it matters: Today's media ecosystem abhors a vacuum. Whenever there's a lack of official, verifiable information, speculation and  disinformation will rush in.

Catch up quick: In late June, news articles describing an outbreak of a mysterious "explosive diarrhea" causing parasite immediately went viral — the stuff of meme gold.

Data: Axios research; Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

Zoom in: The CDC surveillance page for cyclospora initially offered scant information — no actionable steps on how the disease spread or how consumers could prevent it. 

On July 1, Michigan state authorities put out an advisory on the ongoing investigation but noted they hadn't identified a cause yet.

On social media, the scene was much different: first-person accounts of what the disease was like and people identifying fruits, herbs and vegetables that had been linked to previous outbreaks, including berries and cilantro.

Some went beyond that, as people cast blame and made claims without any scientific backing, racking up huge engagement.

What they're saying: "People in general — the general public, reporters — all want information much faster than science can actually provide it," says Scott Lusk, managing director of Signal Health. 

"The irony is social media is both essential to reaching people and it's also one of the places people say they trust the least," he says.

The big picture: The information vacuum turned this into a much wider crisis. 

"We were all worried about what we could eat," says Melissa Mahoney, executive vice president at V2 Communications. "That is a crisis for every company operating in that realm." 

Yes, but: Some brands used this moment to highlight what makes them different. 

Little Leaf Farms put out a series of videos on Instagram, including one that featured its CEO touring a greenhouse and explaining why its hydroponic-grown lettuce wasn't impacted by the outbreak. 

The video racked up over 25,000 likes, vastly outperforming their previous videos which historical netted a few hundred likes.

The bottom line: Social media will fill information vacuums. Communicators may not control when the facts emerge, but they do control how quickly and credibly they respond.

1 big thing: 😶 The information vacuum

Illustrated collage of fingers pointing at each other on a textured background surrounded by abstract lines and microscopic cell imagery. 

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

The outbreak collided with earnings season, forcing public companies to answer questions about cyclospora as investigations were ongoing.

Why it matters: Companies don't get to choose their role in a crisis, but how they respond can determine whether they build trust, lose it or get dragged further.

Catch up quick: Taco Bell pulled lettuce and other ingredients from its menu in early July, posting notices at affected locations citing a nationwide recall but didn't widely distribute a statement about it then.

When the Washington Post reported authorities were investigating Taco Bell's role in the outbreak, the company described the ingredient removal as "a precautionary measure" as officials had not "confirmed a link to Taco Bell or any specific ingredient, supplier, restaurant or retailer."

After the FDA and CDC announced their investigation, Taco Bell's statement emphasized it had completely removed the affected Taylor Farms lettuce from its supply chain.

Parent company Yum Brands leaned on an asset Taco Bell already had: its fan base. 

A letter on Instagram and TikTok became its highest-engaged post of the year, while $1 menu promotions drove record engagement through its loyalty app, the company said on its Q2 earnings call.

What they're saying: "I think they tried to get out ahead of it as best they could," says Loren Riegelhaupt, partner and president at SKDK and co-lead of the health practice. 

Taco Bell was "caught between the producer and the regulators," he says, but accepting a short-term business hit to protect consumers was "the right thing to do."

Yum Brands said Taco Bell's U.S. same-store sales fell 2% in the first few weeks of the third quarter, though sales have started to recover.

Executives said the sharpest impact was the weekend of July 18, shortly after the FDA said it was investigating a cluster tied to Taco Bell locations.

Taco Bell did not respond to Axios' requests for comment.

Taylor Farms had a different trust problem. 

The largely behind-the-scenes supplier suddenly had to introduce itself to consumers while defending its safety record after being identified by government authorities on July 17.

In a statement to Axios, Taylor Farms said it prioritized customer outreach, regulator cooperation and communicating "based on the best available information."

Between the lines: V2 Communications' Mahoney argues Taylor Farms relied too heavily on corporate statements and should have instead deployed its CEO to bring a human face to the response. 

While she said its operational response was aggressive, it failed to build what she calls "emotional trust." 

Consumers, she says, are left asking "Is the food that I'm eating coming from a company that actually cares about the safety? Is this the company that I feel good about purchasing from?" 

Data: BLS series CUSR0000SEFL02; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

Zoom out: Other companies were caught up in the panic, even if they hadn't been mentioned in initial reports. My colleague, Axios' Nathan Bomey, reported the outbreak triggered a massive drop in lettuce prices.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that lettuce prices plunged 16.4% from June to July — the largest decline ever.

Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman addressed the outbreak at the top of  the Q2 earnings call, reiterating the company's menu doesn't use iceberg lettuce.

Still, the company lowered its same-store-sales forecast, citing "reduced consumer demand for fresh prepared foods due to the multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis."

Case in point: Sweetgreen assembled a crisis team, said chief commercial officer Zipporah Allen, and pushed three key facts: it doesn't use iceberg lettuce, its lettuce comes only from the U.S., and it had not been linked to the outbreak.

That's exactly what Lusk from Signal Health advised. 

"Everyone assumes that companies rush to get information out and say they're not involved," he says. "Those next 15 words that explain why you know that are very important."

The bottom line: Crisis response isn't one-size-fits-all. Taco Bell had to act quickly and Taylor Farms had to establish trust with consumers who barely knew its name. Sweetgreen had to prove that an industry-wide scare didn't apply to it.

2. 🗣️ Messaging pressure

Illustrated collage of a head of lettuce on a textured background surrounded by abstract lines and microscopic cell imagery. 

Data: PeakMetrics; Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

The conversation online has evolved from who caused the outbreak to how regulators handled it, according to data from social media monitoring firm Peakmetrics. 

The big picture: Peakmetrics data showed about 73% of posts between July 16 and Aug. 12 about trust in government handling of the cyclospora outbreak expressed distrust.

That peaked at 93.6% following FDA's false-positive correction and 99.4% after two deaths were reported in Michigan.

At the outbreak's peak around July 20-27, only 31.8% of blame-related conversation focused on the FDA and other regulators. That surged to 64.8% by Aug. 4–11.

Peakmetrics tracked conversations across X, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky. 

3. 📊 Blame game shifts

Public health agencies are communicating in an environment where a large part of the public, across the ideological spectrum, is primed for mistrust.

Why it matters: Effective responses to public health crises require buy in from the public.

By the numbers: Even before the cyclospora outbreak, trust in public health agencies had plummeted, according to a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health/de Beaumont Foundation poll.

Just 50% of U.S. adults say they trust CDC health recommendations, down from 77% in 2025.

About 53% said they trust FDA recommendations, in the survey conduced between March 19 and April 1, among a nationally representative sample of 2,205 U.S. adults.

The survey also reflected partisan splits, with trust among Democrats plunging from 92% in 2025 to 34% in 2026, while Republican trust ticked up from 63% to 67%.

The big picture: The government's response to the COVID pandemic turned public health into a political battleground and years later, we're still seeing this play out.

The Senate's Homeland Security Committee voted earlier this month to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt after declining to answer questions about the origins of the pandemic.

Signal Health's Lusk says the lack of trust can't be fixed during crises, when the priority should be managing the health threat itself.

But "you cannot assume that public health communicators have trust at the beginning of a crisis and communication strategies have to reflect that."

Driving the news: On July 19, the FDA retracted a false-positive cyclospora test as part of its evolving investigation. 

Online, the correction quickly fueled speculation, like whether regulators were protecting corporate interests, or how staffing and surveillance cuts weakened the government's outbreak response.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was also scrutinized for saying the outbreak was "under control" on July 21, after the FDA noted a few days later that four more states were experiencing an outbreak.

Agencies were "trying to whistle past the graveyard and pretend like it's all gone and dealt with," says SKDK's Riegelhaupt. Instead, what they accomplished was "just digging a deeper hole."

The other side: An HHS spokesperson said the FDA and CDC deliberately communicate findings before an investigation is complete when the evidence is strong enough to protect public health.

"FDA and CDC use a rigorous, risk-based approach to working outbreak investigations, carefully evaluating the strength, specificity, and consistency of the available epidemiological and traceback evidence alongside the potential risk to public health."

Flashback: Kennedy was already a polarizing figure before the Trump administration eliminated thousands of positions across federal health agencies.

ProPublica previously reported that the cuts include hundreds of workers at the FDA, including those who specialized in consumer and food safety.

Taken together, this put Kennedy on the back foot as the outbreak began — and his premature "under control" message only bolstered his critics. 

The bottom line: Institutional authority alone isn't sufficient as trust in public health agencies declines.

Communicators have to show their work — especially when the science changes.

4. 🦠 Public health comms post-COVID

Illustrated collage of a talking mouth on a textured background surrounded by abstract lines and microscopic cell imagery. 

The lettuce may be off shelves, but the fallout from the outbreak is still moving through corporate America and Washington.

Why it matters: Once a crisis moves beyond the initial response, communications becomes a coordination job across legal, government affairs, investor relations, operations and reputation.  

Zoom in: An FDA investigation, potential congressional inquiry and declining restaurant sales are all stakeholder challenges that communicators need to understand and speak to.

Cyclospora is a case study in the expanded mandate for communicators, who need to recognize how the same issue lands with different constituencies.

"How you talk to an investor versus how you talk to a consumer versus how you talk to a regulator" can vary, says SKDK's Riegelhaupt, "but the facts can't vary."

What they're saying: "A communicator standing by themselves trying to manage this issue will fail," V2 Communications' Mahoney says.

"Understanding what is happening deep inside the business is really important. As a head of communications, the last thing you want to be is surprised," she says. 

The best way to avoid surprises is to build deep relationships with the CFO, general counsel and other leaders across the organization.

What we're watching: Once a crisis subsides, it's time to debrief and assess what needs to change, including:

Did we know who to call at government agencies?

What could be prepared in advance? (i.e, crisis landing sites, FAQs, social graphics and explainers)

There's a new addition to the checklist: the AI GEO angle. 

Companies should consider how crisis information is structured online so that it can be easily found and accurately surfaced by AI tools, which might mean avoiding attachments or downloads, said Signal Health's Lusk. 

The bottom line: The modern CCO needs the legal, financial and political fluency — and internal relationships — to help shape decisions before they become public and to carry out a thorough review after the fact. 

5. The long tail of a crisis

Illustrated collage of a megaphone on a textured background surrounded by abstract lines and microscopic cell imagery. 

Axios

Communicators Pro

August 17, 2026

1 big thing: 😶 The information vacuum