Hundreds Sick in the US from Eating Cilantro Grown in Fields Littered with Toilet Paper, Feces

The US has banned cilantro imports from certain Mexico farms after health officials found the growing fields to be in appalling conditions that were littered with human feces and toilet paper.

That along with the general lack of sanitation among workers in the fields in Puebla has been linked to the outbreak of an intestinal infection, cyclosporiasis. The infection which causes diarrhoea and explosive bowel movements affected atleast 304 people last year in the US. Another 205 people were affected this year in Texas alone.

Since 2013, the FDA and Mexican health authorities have been visiting farms that cultivate cilantro around the Puebla region. At least 8 of them were found to be lacking bathrooms, running water, toilet paper or even soap.

If the ban has to be lifted, the farm owners would have to do more to improve the sanitary conditions for their workers.

In an alert issued on Monday, the FDA "believes it is extremely unlikely that these outbreaks of cyclosporiasis are due to isolated contamination events because of their recurring nature, both in the timing with which they occur (typically April-August each year) and the repeated association of illnesses with cilantro from the state of Puebla."