In a normal year, Michigan sees about 50 cases of a parasite called cyclospora. As of July 16, over 4,000 people have been infected, with more than 100 hospitalizations. Stranger still, Michigan’s own case count is larger than the entire national total.

The parasite cyclospora causes days, sometimes weeks, of explosive diarrhea, and health officials still can’t tell you exactly which food it rode in on. Their best guess this week: lettuce.

Given all this, something feels off, not just with our salad, but with the system that is supposed to see these things coming.

Professor Barbara Kowalcyk has spent more than 20 years trying to fix that system. She came to the job the hardest way there is: in 2001, her two-and-a-half-year-old son, Kevin, died after eating contaminated food. She turned that loss into her life’s work — she helped create the blueprint for America’s last major food-safety law. Today, she directs the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at The George Washington University. 

She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to assess this moment for Americans and how it is challenging the people working in public health trying to protect them.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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