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Heads will bowl.
Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed said he wants Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to answer for the explosive diarrhea parasite linked to lettuce that infected thousands over the summer.
The progressive Democrat — who beat former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Tuesday — told CNN on Thursday that he plans to investigate Kennedy over staffing cuts to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Those cuts, El-Sayed argued, left both agencies flat-footed when the cyclospora outbreak befell the country over the summer, sickening thousands across 49 states.
The incoming lawmaker, who became the first Muslim elected to the US Senate, said he wants to probe the “decision-making” behind the cuts that have contributed to food recalls.
“This is not about retribution for something past,” El-Sayed told anchor Kate Bolduan. “This is about understanding what happened, holding people accountable for what they did and then solving the problem moving forward.”
The parasite was traced back to shredded iceberg lettuce, grown in central Mexico and served at Taco Bell locations in five states.
Taylor Farms de Mexico yanked its entire central Mexico iceberg lettuce from the US market on July 17.
Michigan suffered the worst of the cyclospora outbreak, with more than 15,000 cases reported to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) by late August.
Nationwide, the CDC counted more than 20,000 lab-confirmed infections from all sources, making 2026 the worst year for the parasite on record.
Kennedy pronounced the outbreak “under control” in July. Claims that his cuts had hobbled the response, he said, were “invalid.”
“We had no cuts in the surveillance program,” he said at the time. “We did cuts in the FoodNet program, but they were redundant surveillance.”
Cyclospora was among the casualties of that FoodNet trim — the CDC’s foodborne illness tracker dropped it and five other pathogens from mandatory reporting in 2025 after its funding was cut.
El-Sayed also cited what he called Kennedy’s “anti-science” stewardship of HHS as a reason for senators to give any Trump nominee a hard look.
But the beef between the two men predates lettuce.
Late last month, Kennedy campaigned for Rogers in Grand Rapids, where he claimed Arabs “don’t produce” science or literature.
El-Sayed, who holds a medical degree but is not a licensed physician, shot back at a rally a week later, snapping, “I’ve got two doctorates; he’s got none.”
The soon-to-be senator also goaded the HHS secretary after clinching his Democratic nomination over the summer.
“I can’t wait to sit across from RFK Jr. and actually grill him,” he told CNN in August.
He’ll likely get the chance. Democrats wrested control of the Senate on Tuesday, putting committee gavels — and subpoena power — in their hands come Jan. 3.
