On September 10, 2026, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration closed its investigation into a fourteen-person E. coli O157:H7 outbreak, reference #1382, and for the first time told the public what the food was: romaine lettuce. It named no grower, no processor, no brand and no state where anyone got sick. It said the lettuce was past its shelf life by the time investigators identified it, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had declared the outbreak over on July 29. For ten weeks, the only public record of this outbreak was a single row on a federal table that read “Not Yet Identified.”
What FDA’s table said about #1382, week by week
FDA’s Investigations of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks table is the only place this outbreak ever appeared in public. Here is every version of the #1382 row I captured between July and September.
| Table version | Food listed | Cases | Outbreak | Investigation |
| Week of July 8 | Not Yet Identified | 14 | Ongoing | Active |
| August 6 | Not Yet Identified | 14 | Ended | Active |
| August 12 | Not Yet Identified | 14 | Ended | Active |
| September 2 | Not Yet Identified | 14 | Ended | Active |
| September 10 | Romaine Lettuce | 14 | Ended | Closed |
Source: FDA CORE investigations table, versions captured the week of July 8 through September 10, 2026. FDA posted #1382 to the table on July 1.
The case count sat at fourteen from the table’s second week to the day the file closed. I did not capture every weekly version, but in every one I have, the food column was blank until September 10. I could find no CDC outbreak notice for #1382 at any point, and no news report naming romaine before the closure.
What FDA said when it closed the file
FDA’s closing note says that people who got sick told CDC investigators they had eaten romaine, that epidemiologic and traceback data from CDC, FDA and state and local partners identified romaine as the likely source, and that by then the product “was beyond shelf life.” The closed row shows that FDA traceback was initiated. The inspection box is blank. The sampling box is blank. No recall was initiated. FDA’s own table definitions say the inspection column counts only FDA’s work and that state, and local partners may inspect on their own, so the fair reading is that FDA itself did not inspect or sample, not that no one did.
What the closure leaves out matters as much as what it says. It does not say how many states had cases, how many people were hospitalized, or whether anyone developed hemolytic uremic syndrome. It does not say when investigators settled on romaine. And it does not say whether traceback led to one grower and one processor or fanned out across many.
FDA has answered those questions before
This is not the first time FDA has closed a romaine outbreak after the lettuce was gone. In October 2019, it tied a twenty-three-person E. coli O157:H7 outbreak to romaine after the fact, with the product already past its shelf life. That time, FDA issued a standalone public notice listing cases in twelve states and eleven hospitalizations, with a statement from its deputy commissioner for food policy urging the leafy greens industry to improve traceability.
FDA has also said plainly when traceback did not point to a single source. In the spring 2018 Yuma outbreak, it said the illnesses could not be explained by a single grower, harvester, processor or distributor. In a fall 2020 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak, it said traceback identified no single farm as a common source. The #1382 closure says neither that traceback converged nor that it fanned out.
Will FDA name the grower or processor?
Not on its own, if past practice holds. FDA’s table definitions say that once it closes its response, it will embed an Executive Incident Summary Abstract in the reference number, so a #1382 abstract should appear. It will probably describe the traceback. It will almost certainly not name anyone. Food Safety News reported that the first abstracts named no restaurants, stores or growers.
The abstract for #1339, a 2025 Salmonella outbreak tied to spring mix, shows how it works. It says the traceback legs converged on a supplier and processor of packaged organic salads, and FDA blacks out the name. It blacks out even the number of traceback legs.
Why the 2024 romaine outbreak matters here
I have been writing about #1280 since the fall of 2024. It was an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak tied to romaine that sickened 89 people in 15 states, hospitalized 36, gave seven hemolytic uremic syndrome and killed one. FDA closed it with nothing but “Romaine Lettuce” on its table. During the investigation, FDA said the lettuce blend involved appeared to be past its shelf life.
When FDA first released its traceback summary, the processor, grower and ranch were all blacked out under the (b)(4) exemption. I stayed on the agency, and in stages it unredacted the file. The traceback led to a single processor, Taylor Farms of California in Salinas, and a single grower, Anthony Costa & Sons of Soledad. Taylor Farms has denied that its product was the source.
The shelf-life reason FDA gave in 2024 is the same one it gives now. It was not a good reason then. A best-by date protects no one by the time a file closes. A name lets other buyers question their suppliers, lets the people who got sick understand what happened to them, and gives the grower and processor a public reason to find and fix the problem.
What FDA should say about #1382 now
Four questions can be answered without harming anyone.
- Did traceback lead to one grower and one processor?
- How many states, hospitalizations and HUS cases were there?
- When did investigators identify romaine?
- Did any state inspect a farm or a plant?
If the answer to the first question is yes, the names should be public, exactly as I have argued for #1280.
When the #1382 abstract posts, I will write about what it says and what it blacks out. The history is in my running list of E. coli outbreaks linked to romaine lettuce.
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