Abdel Sayed, an epidemiologist, is running for Senate. His mandate is a public health disaster

Michigan ground Zero for the twin public health crises that have wreaked havoc on the United States. The state has some of the most polluted air on Earth because of this Canadian wildfire smoke Last week while it also had the highest number of Cases of cyclosporiasis In the country.

These in-your-face (and sometimes in-your-face) problems, says Senate candidate Abdel Sayed, help make a complex topic — the need to invest in public health infrastructure — much easier to talk about with voters. He has the unique qualifications to do this as an M.D. and has served as a health official in Detroit.

“Do you like to eat lettuce? I love it. I don’t like that idea because we’ve eliminated our entire service that keeps the lettuce safe,” says Al-Sayed, referring to how the government’s efficiency department Reduce its size The federal laboratory that tested for cyclosporiasis last year. “Now, everyone is trying to avoid lettuce. And if you don’t, you’re going to be stuck in the toilet for the next five days. That’s bad.”

Al-Sayed is running in a tight Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat. He’s got support from big-name progressives: Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied with him in Grand Rapids over the weekend, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed him on Monday. In her endorsement, Warren said El-Sayed is someone who will fight “the same billionaires and special interests that have rigged our economy against the working class.” For El-Sayed, that includes tackling election spending.

“A lot of this, in the end, comes down to extracting money from politics,” he says. “A lot of these regulation changes have to do with huge food companies, and, well, these regulations are too much. We can enforce them ourselves. I’m like, ‘Can you? Why didn’t you fix the lettuce poop?’

WIRED caught up with El Sayed to chat about how to fix the public health problems facing his state and why we shouldn’t accept that “poop lettuce” is our new normal.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Wired: How have the last few weeks been for you personally, with this cascading public health crisis?

Abdel Sayed: I don’t know what happened, but I was taken out for four days – and no test was done, because I was on the campaign trail, but I think it was (cyclosporiosis). If you can imagine the election campaign, it was miserable. It was actually my wife who said, maybe I get this.

And then, over the last week or so, we’ve been really concerned about the air quality. I try to stay active, I cycle a lot, and I choose to stay indoors. You do more harm than good exercising outside with this type of air quality.

You don’t have to avoid lettuce everywhere you go and then accidentally run away because you didn’t avoid the lettuce. Step back and ask yourself if any of this is normal.

You’ve had a lot of experience dealing with crises like this at the local and state levels. What will you do in the Senate, especially under an administration that starves funding, staff, and essential tools of public health, like peer-reviewed science and public data?

I would like to be able to call leaders at the EPA, CDC, and FDA (to testify before Congress). I want to investigate exactly how our food supply is at risk, and how decisions were made at the CDC. Why are their numbers so late? For the vast majority of people, cyclosporiosis is not a fatal outcome, but imagine what happens when the same infrastructure has to deal with something that already exists. What will we do next?