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Uncanny Valley | WIRED
Why Apple Sued OpenAI; New York Takes On Data Centers; Cyclosporiasis Outbreak
00:40:30
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to Wired's uncanny Valley. I'm Zoe Schiffer, Contributing editor.
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B
I'm Brian Barrett, Executive editor.
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C
And I'm Leah Fieger, Director of Politics and Science.
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A
This week we're discussing OpenAI's ongoing drama, both legal and reputational. Last Friday, Apple sued the company, basically alleging that OpenAI has been stealing confidential hardware secrets. And now this week, Wired learned that some OpenAI employees are launching a super PAC to push for AI guardrails. We'll get into all those details and whether these developments could further hurt OpenAI, particularly in its fight against anthropic.
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B
Also on the AI front, this week, New York State officially passed the first statewide data center moratorium. We'll dive into what that means exactly. And whether this move could pave the way for other states to follow suit.
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C
We'll also talk about how some members of the so called Department of Government Efficiency, better known as doge, used AI to actually shape housing policy. And we're going to check in on the disease sweeping the nation, cyclosporiasis, which is causing quote unquote, turbo diarrhea across the country.
- [01:11]
A
Okay, you guys, I'm really excited to start with this OpenAI drama because the company has been in the headlines a lot lately and not for fantastic reasons. So basically what happened was last Friday, Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly stealing information like unreleased iPhone parts and prototypes, confidential designs, documents about secret projects. That accusation sucks for OpenAI. It's pretty intense, but it gets really messy because Apple is basically saying that this theft, this alleged theft mostly happened through former employees. OpenAI's chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, who spent 24 years at Apple, is named in the lawsuit and accused of encouraging people who are leaving Apple to bring with them prepared proprietary information and unreleased technology. You guys. Brian, I just, I'm so curious what you thought when this dropped.
- [02:04]
B
I think it's fascinating. There's a lot of really interesting accusations in there. I think it's also like, it's part of Apple's playbook that we haven't seen in a while. But it is something that Apple has sort of done or threatened to do before. Tony Fadell, who is a longtime Apple guy, but then went on to start Nest, the thermostat company he had also, I think he told a story recently in the wake of all this about how when he had started Nest, he hired several hundred Apple employees. Steve Jobs called him, threatened to sue, scream bloody murder. But what I thought Fadell said was interesting and I don't know that applies directly Here. But reportedly what he says is that he said, you know, it's my job to hire great people, it's your job to keep them.
- [02:50]
A
I forget that Apple is a pretty litigious company. Like they've famously sued employees for, you know, supposedly leaking stuff or taking proprietary stuff with them when they left Apple, which, you know, companies will do occasionally, but particularly for leaks. Like it is kind of rare to see lawsuits come. But this is the area that I feel like Apple cares most about. It is so secretive about its products that when that stuff starts to get out of its hands, I think they really are quick to like jump on it. My take here, and Leah, I'm curious to hear your thoughts, is that this isn't about getting like damages from OpenAI. I think what Apple actually wants is to slow down OpenAI's hardware ambitions because it's really continuing. Apple is continuing to go all in on the iPhone as like the primary computing platform for the AI era. And I do think that if we see an audio first platform that works better for stuff where you do not need to look at a screen and you can just talk to an agent, that could be intimidating for them.
- [03:55]
B
I think this is what's interesting to me too is some reporting came out this week also about what the device is eventually going to look like from Bloomberg and said it's going to be like a speaker. It's going to have some motorized elements or so it'll like move in some capacity. Reece Rogers, I hope he doesn't mind my sharing, said it sounded like a furby, which I think is probably right. But look, I'm really. If OpenAI is banking on hardware, I am skeptical. I feel like ultimately Apple can still make a speaker. And because also because Apple is sort of a more neutral party in all this, Apple can make a speaker that has a few different AI options to choose from potentially or has Siri AI, which is pulled from Gemini. And ultimately I do think it's going to come down to the device that you use most of the time is going to be the phone.
- [04:48]
A
Well, I mean that has been true for a long time and I think we've seen even Apple try and get away from like this very screen heavy life that we're all living like with the face computer. The name is escaping me.
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B
Vision Pro.
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A
The Vision Pro. Thank you so much.
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B
You don't think about Vision Pro every day.
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A
No, I have to say that it lived and died very quickly and I haven't thought about it since. But I think the issue, and this has been true for other AI hardware devices like the famous, like PIN from Humane AI and all of that. It's like there just are many things that are better to do on a screen and I don't think that's gonna change. However, if you can get agents and voice mode that works really, really well. There are, you know, other things that you really could just ask an agent to execute for you and you might prefer not to look at a screen the whole time. Um, and so I personally, as someone who has a very tortured relationship with my screens, I'm like ready for something that could work a little bit better, but it's, it's hard to execute correctly and I don't think we've seen a product so far that has been able to do that just to ground what we're talking about a little bit more. OpenAI has hired more than 400 former Apple employees, according to the lawsuit. And last year it paid $6.5 billion to acquire a startup called IO Products that was co founded by longtime Apple executives including Tan, Scott Cannon, Ev, Vince Hanke, and the most famous person, Jony. I've.
- [06:15]
B
Yeah, it is a huge investment that they're making in this space and it's obviously got a sting for Apple to be losing all of these people. Plus they've lost AI researchers to other companies as well. Apple's kind of hemorrhaging AI talent and now hardware talent too, which really hits them where it hurts. What I am most excited about, about this whole process is we're not even really there yet is that lawsuits mean discovery and discovery. Yay, discovery. Yay. And discovery means we're going to get to read so many emails of these companies talking trash about each other and themselves, and it's going to be such a delight. It's always a joy when these things happen.
- [06:56]
A
It's so fun. No one is cattier than a lawyer with an IP issue.
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B
Put that on a mug zone. They are, wow, do we have merch yet? Can that be our merch? That's our merch.
- [07:06]
A
Yeah, that's our merch.
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B
You know, OpenAI's headaches are not just limited to the Apple lawsuit. This week, wired learned that OpenAI staffers are funding a rival super PAC to advocate for tighter regulations on Frontier AI Labs. It's a rival, of course, to all of the money that people like Greg Brockman, OpenAI executive and others have put towards boosting AI and shutting down Guardrails. This new super PAC called Guardrails Alliance. Catchy. It launched last month.
- [07:37]
A
Sounds like an Insurance plan.
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B
It does it really. And like not one that you necessarily want to sign up for. It's like the only one that'll give you a mortgage. It launched last month with $5 million in initial funding. It bills itself as a populist effort by tech workers, labor unions and other groups. And here's the key aspect. It's going to be a counterweight to that hundred million dollar Leading the Future fund that we talked about a second ago.
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D
Right.
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A
The way you said 5 million, it was like 5 million was a lot. And I was like, seems like I
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B
was, I was, I'm trying to hype. I mean they need, you know, it's Guardrail's alliance. They need a little bit of a boost.
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A
Yeah, no, they, they do. I have been kind of waiting for this moment, I will say, since we found out that Greg Brockman was donating so much money to MAGA and Trump related causes, you know, in his view. And Maxwell Zaf, WIRED reporter, has reported on this pretty extensively. Like, it's really all about boosting AI and AI policy. And I think his view and the view of many others in the industry is that Trump and those aligned with him are like more favorable toward a kind of growth at all costs, AI first policy agenda. But if you talk to any average researcher, overwhelmingly the companies are filled with younger employees who are pretty liberal. And so that tension felt potentially really messy to me. And OpenAI still has a culture where people are willing to push back and speak out. Like if you look at their slack there, there is kind of, it has that like earlier tech feel of people really like working out the problems in public. Even though this stuff does tend to leak so much at the same time. Like the composition of the company is really changing. There are these newer employees that have been brought in over the past year or two. I've heard some employees call them the MAGA blondes. I honestly don't even know if they are blonde or maga oriented. But I think there's this feeling that OpenAI is really changing. And there is kind of like the Trump aligned contingent and then there's the, the more kind of liberal contingent.
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C
Look, this is so much to me, the grassroots versus the billionaire. But it's all from within the same company. Which is, we talk about Silicon Valley sometimes as a monolith, but it is so clearly not a monolith. You have so many different people at different rungs. And I was really taken with the, that like one of the largest donors was a research engineer. He gave 200k research engineer Juan Felipe Cerro and Rube and he gave 200k and has spent years working on the company's strategies for mitigating potential societal harms caused by AI. I would love to see a performance review of him after all of this is done. And I actually really do wonder if people are nervous about this. I Are there, are there stopgaps, Zoe, like at these kinds of companies to prevent perhaps a more Trump aligned manager from taking it out on a more liberal coded person, especially when this is playing out financially like in political races and will certainly have impact.
- [10:41]
A
Yeah, I mean look, OpenAI is a relatively mature company. It has processes as an HR department. Like I don't. It's not to say this stuff can't happen. It absolutely can and we've seen it happen before. But I, I think until it becomes a major issue, until we see this fight actually impact like the work and OpenAI's ability to ship new models, frankly I think they're going to go with a line of like, you know, we have an open culture, people are allowed to disagree, this is totally fine and they'll try and spin it almost as a positive and we'll see.
- [11:17]
B
Leah, I have my question for you is, you know, $5 million in the grand scheme of things, not a lot of money. They have a larger goal to raise $15 million during the election cycle. What can they reasonably expect to accomplish with that kind of money? If you were them, how would you go about spending it? What's the actual potential? You mentioned impact? What does that look like in practice?
- [11:39]
C
Probably that's a really good question. And I mean I'd be remiss to not also call out the other PAC that was started by employees from Anthropic that's also trying to combat leading the future. It's called Public First Action. They have something like tech $20 million. So there is, there is like other funding. There are other people in the AI space that are kind of making moves against the Greg Brockman's of the world. But again, when you're talking about what does that bring us to 25 million versus 100 million, that's obviously still a massive difference. To me this says that they need to be working on down ballot local campaigns. This is, you can honestly get a lot of bang for your buck in smaller states with like less expenditures. Honestly I kind of, as we're talking about some of the big races right now, the races that everyone wants to talk about are Texas and Maine and there are without a doubt very expensive ad buys to be Had. But when you're talking about the state of Maine, for example, there's a lot of, like, local volunteer power that would be very, very interested in getting involved for very, very cheap. And local organizations that are also able to mobilize, again, very cheaply.
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D
Right.
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C
Radio spots in Maine versus, like, radio spots in Austin.
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A
There.
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C
There are different capacities here. So to me, what this really says. And we're not gonna. I mean, actually, I can't say. Cause I don't know exactly who all of their political advisors are at this moment, but this is really gonna come down to, like, advisory staff. Are they being told to get into, like, the biggest races in New York and what have you? They shouldn't. This is like, yeah, absolutely. Like, make your thoughts known, especially when you're talking about AI regulation, New York data centers, all of these different things. But if you want to have some of these bigger moments and movements, you got to go down ballot. And so I'm curious to see how this goes. And to me, this is also going to say, is this a play for. Is this a play for notoriety? Is this a way to say, like, look, there's a bunch of OpenAI employees that don't agree with you, or is this a way to actually impact races and perhaps, like, turn Senate blue? We'll see.
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B
Yeah, that's a good point. In some ways, it's as if not more important to be really vocal and visible, saying, hey, we don't all think the same about this. Yeah. Regardless of the outcome and the money behind it.
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C
Speaking of AI in politics, I'm going to talk about one of my favorite topics, as always. Doge Department of Government Efficiency, started by Elon Musk. It's still in the news. And it is in the news for a very specific reason for us this week, which is we can't get more news out about it. Of doge, who are working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD used AI to inform policy decisions. This is something that we were reporting on and figured out last year. But now the agency appears to be denying Freedom of Information act requests for information on the development and the use of the AI tools and the way they actually informed these policy decisions. This all came out according to documents obtained by a FOIA request from Democracy Forward, which is a nonprofit legal organization. And it's pretty concerning. You would assume that, like, a year after some of this dust has settled that we'd be able to get a little bit more information and from government agency to government agency. HUD really is the latest example Here we've been just getting tons of stonewalling on additional, further details as to what DOGE has been up to, the access they had, the materials they used. It's very much about the fact that they used AI, but it's also, how did they use AI? What is still left in the systems and like, what were the regulations there? What got blown by, who knew about this? And these are so many important details that are just missing. And especially now as people are like, going back and trying to untangle the spaghetti web that was like, left in their steed. It's very frustrating for employees, understandably, and frankly should be frustrating for anyone who is going to be impacted by housing policy in the next 20 years in America.
- [15:39]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think it speaks to like an issue that we're all kind of grappling with, which is like, AI tools can be used in ways that are very legitimate and helpful. If you told me that they were using AI for like, research and checking their sources, I would be like, seems smart, cool. And then it can be used in ways that are, you know, possibly introducing discrimination. It could be used, you know, in ways that some would call cheating. Like, and I think the just huge range and the types of tools available, they create a lot of questions and questions that I would say, like, the public is entitled to some form of answers on. But like you said, right now we're being a little bit stonewalled.
- [16:32]
C
You're 100% right, Zoe. And in this specific case, HUD employees who spoke to Wired at the time that this all was coming out found that these DOGE employees were using AI to identify agency rules for potential rescission or contract cancellations. And like, this was happening across government. But again, I just want to be like, so clear about what this means. As they were saying, here's this massive list of contracts. What do you think we should cut here? And just kind of like, let's see what happens. Again, we don't have more details on everything that got cut. The way that it got cut, the way that it all went down. What we're missing now, as a result, it's all still coming together. And that makes it so much more unfortunate. And especially when you're also thinking about the people that were doing this that were actually employing the AI. Wired had reported that Christopher Sweet, who was then a third year student at the University of Chicago, was one of the people really involved in this effort, as was Scott Langmach, who came to DOGE from a property technology startup called Cocoon. So it's not like the. These were people who were a. Even necessarily like that, well versed in government work by any means. But then additionally the idea of going through like massive government contract lists with AI and being like, yep, good to go.
- [17:45]
B
I do need to say for those who love creative company spellings, that's Kakun K U K U N. No, it is, it is. So they're claiming this AI exemption, right? They're saying like, oh, we can't possibly release these to you because it was AI and AI is exempted from foia, which is not the case. But what's the. I guess the two parter. Leah, what are the implications of that? Like are we seeing it beyond HUD or other agencies going to embrace this and what's the next step? Do we go to the courts with this? Not we, but like do people go to the courts with this to fight this?
- [18:19]
C
I mean like, great question, probably if like this is information that the American public wants to know, if this is information that Democracy Forward decides is worth their time. There is no AI exemption under foia. AI talking to people and AI talking to each other is not privileged communications, which is the argument that was being made here. There are no laws in the US that require the government to disclose if AI has been used in the creation of rules, policies or regulation. And so simultaneously a FOIA like this is the only way that you would find out. And saying that there is this AI exemption then just creates an entire, entire black box.
- [18:54]
A
I would say also that it's not just how they use the tools, but how the tools made the decisions that they made. Because anyone who's used AI agents at all knows that you can't just say, identify regulations that we should potentially do XYZ to. You have to give them a lot of context. And then even then it's very important to interrogate the tools and say how did you make that decision so you can understand what the AI is taking into account and what it's ignoring. Like these tools are not completely neutral. They are built by humans. They have biases baked in. And I would sincerely hope, but I don't have that much hope that like Doge was looking, all of looking at all of that and not just like unleashing AI on these systems kind of willy nilly, 100%.
- [19:45]
B
Zoe, how much hope do you actually have?
- [19:48]
A
I mean, I don't. Yeah, no.
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C
The last thing I want to leave you guys with of this too is that Lang Mac of the aforementioned property technology startup Cocoon, he's now The Executive Director of Deregulation AI at the Office of Management and Budget, which falls under the Executive Office of the President, according to his LinkedIn. So it's not like this person has now disappeared into obscurity and his decision making, or we actually don't know a ton about his decision making because they won't tell us, gets to kind of continue being in this black box. Which is again, just to say that, like, do it very much felt like Doge, like swept in and swept out in the same wave of the year, but that's really not the case. Like the people that got very involved and entrenched these policies from the beginning are still not just in government, but like officially in government, entrenched, serious roles, pay scales, et cetera. And it's, it's a, it's a story we're paying really, really close attention to. And big ups to a senior reporter, Victoria Elliott, for staying in the weeds on this for us.
- [20:53]
A
Okay, one more AI story. So New York became the first state in the country to impose a statewide moratorium on building new data centers. The moratorium was signed as an executive order by New York Governor Kathy Hochul. And it puts into place a one year pause on the development of large scale data centers while the state develops new environmental and energy grid standards.
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D
The bottom line is progress shouldn't arrive with a higher utility bill, deleted water supply or noise pollution. So we have no choice but to address these challenges created by these massive facilities. That is why today I'll be signing the nation's first ever statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers.
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A
Okay, well, there's a few caveats to just point out. And then I want to hear what you guys have to say. One, this moratorium applies only to large scale data centers. So 50 megawatts or more. And it doesn't affect facilities that have already started construction or have existing permanent or have existing permits. And it'll also lift once the state finalizes a generic environmental and impact statement. So that could be a year or more out. The thing that I want to say is that I feel like there are two stories that this moratorium is wrestling with. There's like the national story, which is we actually need AI in this country. It's a big part of our economy and it's like in some ways the big bet we have taken. We don't have a lot else, it feels like right now.
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C
And then, I mean, EVs are done. So this is, this is it, boy.
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A
And then there's the local story, which is it is very uncomfortable and it frankly sucks to live near a data center. It does spike your energy bill. It does suck up a lot of water. And those things are going to continue being in tension.
- [22:48]
C
I have to bring this up because data centers right now on a large scale are kind of unpopular. They're just, like, ultimately unpopular. I feel like every other headline is like, and this community is rebelling against this, and this community is rebelling against this. And other states have tried and failed to actually pass a similar moratorium. So I'm kind of curious how New York's is going to go. And I also have to tell you guys that I was before we recorded this podcast, which we record on Wednesdays. This is going to be released to you all on Thursday morning. I was refreshing Truth Social convinced that Trump was going to weigh in. I was like, absolutely positive. And he did. At 12:39, Trump weighs in and goes. One of the biggest driving forces in the future for jobs are data centers. Just imagine a lot of, like, random capitalization in there. They are big, strong, bold and money machines for the state in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all data centers being built or to be built in New York State. These companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona and many other states. Both the taxes and the job amount to liquid gold. New York State has made a terrible decision. He continues and continues and continues. I mean, from the political side of all this. And I know that there is so much we need to unpack with the tech and the climate and everything. Whoever told Donald Trump that data centers was gonna be his winning issue for midterms, I want to be in a room with them. It's incredible.
- [24:15]
B
I'm really surprised because as Zoe and I both muttered while you were saying that he's wrong, his arguments are wrong. There is an argument he could make right similar to what Zoe made that's right in his wheelhouse. It's an America first argument. It is that it is crucial, like AI is the next space race. We need to beat China. We need data centers to do that. Ask not what you can do for your country.
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C
He gets there in the end.
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B
Wait, other way around.
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C
Other way around by the end, he gets there. The radical left Democrats must not be allowed to cause us to lose data centers, AI and all of this incredible new technology to China and other countries. President Donald J. Trump, he does get there. Again, however, littered with errors and also, I think, missing, like, a really key part of his electorate that is not just in blue States that's going, how on earth am I supposed to pay for this and live with this?
- [25:04]
A
Right? And that, I mean that is the issue. And we've seen other states pass regulations. Ultimately this is my take. I think we need to focus on making data centers safer, better, less impactful to the communities that they're near. We need to put them in areas that aren't directly adjacent to where people are living as much as we're able. We need to make them less energy intensive to the extent that we are able. I personally would say like a blanket moratorium, which again not exactly what this is, but is a mistake just because of how dependent the entire economy is on AI right now and how important these AI data centers continue to be for the AI race and boom.
- [25:43]
B
I disagree. I think, I think the carve outs here make sense. Like anything under you can still build anything up to 50 megawatts, you can still build some pretty decent sized mega centers. Data center is not like huge huge but like you can get a pretty good data center. And look, I, they're building, someone's building a data center 10 miles from my house, right? It's going to be pretty big. It's going to be right next to where the animal shelter was going to move. It's like bad. And to have watched that process, it sort of happened before anybody realized it was happening. And I think that's the story that's true A lot of places in this country where as a community these deals were made a while ago or when they do happen, you don't necessarily know until the permitting's done that this is even coming in. So I do think some sort of pause, some sort of moratorium, some sort of restrictions on until we sort of figure out A, a way to inform people what's going on, B, a better plan of attack for where these things go and the impact they'll have. And again, I have a dog in this fight, so I'm not saying I'm an unbiased perspective here.
- [26:49]
A
Well no, I think that that's a fair point to make. I will just say, like talking to a lot of industry people, it really surprises me how constrained startups feel in particular by compute. Like there is, you know, you hear about SpaceX, OpenAI, these places that have a lot of access to data centers, a lot of access to computers. Everyone else is like fighting tooth and nail to get access and they need a lot more than they're currently able to get. It makes me like a little less stressed about AI bubble talk because I'M like, I don't know, like if you're in Silicon Valley at least it still just feels like the appetite is enormous. Brian, I can see you taking a big sigh.
- [27:35]
B
No, no, no. Yes, always. But no, I did want to before we move on because I want to make sure I asked Leah a quick question, which is that this is shaping up, at least to me, to be a real issue in the midterms, at least in some places. And I want to know what your sense of like, but, but also what's, what's interesting about it to me too is it doesn't seem necessarily despite Trump's post, that clearly divided among party lines, like, like, how is this going to play out? I like it feels like an issue. I don't know for who or where or how.
- [28:11]
C
The reason I was clicking refresh on Truth Social is because I'd had a government source tell me that this was a priority of President Trump's going forward. And I wasn't 100% sure if that was going to actually bear out. Sorry to my source, if you're listening, just because this has, like you said, this has really been a not down the line issue. You have Republicans and Democrats that have been opposing data centers in their communities asking for reform, asking for moratoriums again, because like community impact is just community impact, whether it's a blue state or a red state.
- [28:51]
B
Coming up after the break, we'll be diving into the cyclospiriasis illness outbreak. That's the nicest possible way I can put it. That has a lot of people wondering whether they should skip that salad for lunch. Stay with this.
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C
This next story is not for the faint of stomach, but it's an important public health story, so bear with us. The US Is in the middle of its worst outbreak on record of a nasty parasitic infection called cyclospiriasis, which causes explosive weeks long diarrhea. It is spreading fast with cases now confirmed in more than 30 states. And to break down what's actually going on, what officials know and still don't know, and where we're going from here, we're joined by Wired's Emily Mullen. Emily, thank you so much for being here.
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D
Hello. I'm sorry to be here on this occasion.
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C
Could you just start by explaining what cyclospora is and why this year's outbreak is being called the worst on record?
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D
There's no good way to talk about this. I apologize to Zoe and our listeners. Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that causes pretty bad intestinal illness. The illness is called cyclospariasis. People get it by consuming food or water that's contaminated with this parasite. The CDC suspects there may be close to 7,000 cases already nationwide. Michigan makes up the bulk of those. And on Wednesday, their case count was just updated to more than 3,700 cases. Just for context, in a typical year, states might report like, a handful of cases to a few dozen. So this is really unusual. The actual case count is almost certainly higher. Both the CDC and outside experts have said this, and it's because, you know, most people don't seek medical care when they get diarrhea. We're not all going out and calling our doctors about our bathroom habits. And, you know, even when they do, labs don't routinely test for this parasite. But now that there's awareness about it out there, if you do have symptoms, you should definitely be asking, asking your doctor to get tested specifically for this.
- [31:23]
C
I mean, I have to say there's diarrhea and there's diarrhea like what we're hearing. This cause is just like something. There's this. This is. No, no, no. I need everyone to really understand this is so much more than that. This isn't like a couple of bad bowel movements. This is. I heard accounts of one man who said that he was on the toilet 40 times in one day. This is beyond what, you know, a casual bout would do to a human.
- [31:59]
D
Yeah. So this is not like a one and done type of thing. This is like, you know, can be days, possibly up to a week or two of diarrhea. And one of the big concerns with this prolonged diarrhea is dehydration. So people should just be aware of that if they think they have symptoms of this and just keep hydrated. One of the things that experts say is that if you are older, if you are immunocompromised, if you are particularly at risk for severe dehydration, you should really, you know, be concerned about this and be on the lookout for dehydration.
- [32:45]
B
Emily, the cause, Emily, the cause is kind of a mystery still, too, Right. I've heard people say tainted lettuce could be a culprit, but also maybe raw fruits and produce. All the things that are supposed to be good for you are now this. Is there any food that's safer than not? What should people look out for? Do we even know yet?
- [33:07]
D
We do not know the exact source of the outbreak right now. The CDC is still investigating several food products, although Michigan health officials have said that lettuce keeps coming up as a common product during their investigation. And just in general, we know that lettuce and leafy greens are a common source of other foodborne illnesses. We know that romaine lettuce, for instance, is always linked to E. Coli outbreaks. Salmonella. Other leafy greens are linked to norovirus. So it would not really be a surprise if lettuce does end up being the culprit here. And one of the reasons lettuce is problematic is because you know it's eaten raw. You don't hear about disease outbreaks from Brussels sprouts because we cook them. Another reason is that lettuce and other leafy greens have these small folds and crevices that make it difficult to wash off pathogens completely.
- [34:09]
A
So how do you get rid of it then?
- [34:13]
D
Yeah, well, this is a great question because the Cyclospora parasite is resistant to bleach and chlorine. And also, you know, vinegar does not kill it. So one thing you should know is that if you're buying the bagged lettuce that says it's pre washed, still wash it. You know, it's, it's. This parasite is very good at latching onto the surfaces of fruits and vegetables. So right now you really need to like get in there and give your greens a good scrub. You should be scrubbing down all of your raw vegetables, but especially lettuce.
- [34:56]
C
That is great news for those of us who are avoiding lettuce this summer and just really leaning into fried food that you.
- [35:05]
A
Leah Wide moratorium on lettuce of honey
- [35:08]
C
sauce leah wide moratorium 100%. So you. I mean like, we, I feel like we can't really talk about this without talking about like government cuts in the healthcare space. You reported on CDC's food net cutbacks last year. The HHS has pushed back a bit on the idea that these kinds of funding cuts are to blame. They've said that this reporting has continued through other systems, et cetera, et cetera. To what extent though, do cuts actually play a role? Can we blame Doge for how bad this has gotten? Please let me blame Doge for how bad this has gotten.
- [35:41]
B
Can we coin the phrase dojorrhea?
- [35:45]
A
I was going to say we should replace the word diarrhea with cocoon just to be funny, but I felt like it was a little too obscure.
- [35:52]
C
Circle, you guys.
- [35:53]
D
Thank you so much. So a former CDC official told the Washington Post that FoodNet was not designed for this real time outbreak detection or response. Its function is more in tracking Longer term trends. But I think the bigger issue here is the huge staffing cuts we've seen to the cdc. We reported last year that about a quarter of the CDC has been cut under this administration, and that is going to have ripple effects across all of public health. So in this situation, it means fewer people conducting outbreak investigations, which can really hamper response efforts.
- [36:31]
A
Okay, so for people who are listening right now, perhaps me among them, what is the actual practical guidance? Should people be avoiding salads? Should we be avoiding lettuce altogether?
- [36:43]
D
I mean, my personal opinion about salads, you probably don't want to hear, but I think there are more nutritious vegetables out there. I'm just saying.
- [36:52]
A
Oh, my gosh, we need a whole other podcast on that.
- [36:56]
D
I mean, if you're buying lettuce, you should be scrubbing it clean. I think in terms of eating at home versus out, maybe, you know, you don't eat salads out because you just don't know what the cleaning process was like. And, you know, if you trust yourself to do that more, then I would say, yeah, still go for the salad. If you like salad, if you want to risk it, that's sort of up to you.
- [37:24]
B
The good is you can. You can still eat as much ranch dressing as you want. And to me, that's what a salad is. So I think we're fine.
- [37:33]
A
Absolutely.
- [37:34]
C
Emily, thank you so much for joining us today. This was the best.
- [37:39]
D
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [37:42]
A
That's our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show. Notes. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. It was mixed by Pran Bandy, who's also our New York studio engineer. It was fact checked by Matt Giles and Daniel Roman. Mark Leda is our San Francisco studio engineer. Kate Osborne is our executive producer, and Katie Drummond is Wired's global editorial.
- [38:17]
B
I'm Nate Hedgey, host of Outside in a show where curiosity and the natural world collide.
- [38:23]
C
Oh, my God.
- [38:25]
B
I call it helium, but that's Sir Helium to you, because this is one noble gas. That's exactly what Darwin thought. That song predated speech and human ancestors sang some sort of wordless songs.
- [38:35]
A
I have to say, it is just perfectly dry down here.
- [38:39]
B
Stay curious with Outside in from nhpr, available wherever you get your podcasts.