Tennessee Histoplasmosis Outbreak — August 2026 Status: At least 35 people in the Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station area (Williamson and Maury Counties) have been diagnosed with histoplasmosis — a serious fungal lung infection — since September 2025, and at least one person has died. The Tennessee Department of Health’s investigation into the source is ongoing. If you lived, worked, or stayed in the area and were diagnosed, call (205) 407-6009 for a free case review. Tennessee’s deadline can be as short as one year.
Middle Tennessee is living through an unusual disease outbreak. Beginning in September 2025, residents of Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station started falling ill with histoplasmosis, an infection caused by breathing in Histoplasma fungal spores from disturbed soil, especially soil enriched by bird or bat droppings. On December 3, 2025, the Tennessee Department of Health issued a Health Alert Network advisory to clinicians; by late January 2026, officials confirmed at least 35 cases and one death, with reports of both acute and severe disseminated infections.
What Is Histoplasmosis?
Histoplasmosis begins like a stubborn flu: fever, cough, chest pain, fatigue, and muscle aches — typically 3 to 17 days after exposure. Most healthy adults clear it, but the infection can settle into the lungs, spread through the body (disseminated histoplasmosis), and turn deadly, particularly for infants, older adults, and anyone immunocompromised. Severe cases require weeks or months of antifungal treatment and can leave permanent lung damage.
What the CDC Investigation Found
Federal disease investigators reviewed the outbreak and identified 40 cases during the autumn of 2025 among people who lived or spent significant time within roughly a 3.8-mile radius on the Williamson and Maury county line. Twenty-six of those patients required hospitalization. Investigators also documented deaths among the identified cases; local reporting through 2026 has confirmed at least one, and the federal review recorded three.
One finding matters especially for families here. About 65 percent of the identified patients were immunosuppressed, and those patients were roughly fourteen times more likely to be hospitalized than others. If you were on immunosuppressive medication, undergoing cancer treatment, living with an autoimmune condition, or had received a transplant, you were at markedly higher risk of the severe form of this illness, and your case deserves a careful look.
Investigators were not able to pinpoint a specific exposure source, and they said plainly that the outbreak highlights real gaps in what is known about how this disease spreads. That is an honest scientific conclusion. It is not the end of the legal question.
The Construction Dust Theory
Histoplasma lives in soil enriched by bird or bat droppings and is harmless while undisturbed. It becomes dangerous when something disturbs that soil and sends spores into the air, which is why outbreaks cluster around excavation, demolition, grading, and land clearing.
Reporting from Williamson County has focused on construction activity near Buckner Lane, on the county line at the center of the case cluster, and on a specific question: whether dust suppression measures required by law were actually used and followed during that work. Watering, covering, and controlling airborne dust are ordinary legal obligations on a construction site, and failing to meet them is the kind of negligence that supports a claim. Nothing has been proven, no defendant has been named publicly, and the companies involved have not had their say. But that question, whether required dust control was followed, is the specific issue a lawsuit would put in front of a jury.
How a Claim Works Before a Source Is Named
People assume they cannot do anything until officials announce who caused an outbreak. That gets it backwards, and in Tennessee it is dangerous.
Lawyers develop these cases through legal discovery, not press releases. Filing gives us subpoena power to obtain grading permits, contractor records, dust-control plans, inspection reports, air monitoring data, and work logs showing exactly what happened on that site and when. Health departments investigate disease; they do not investigate liability, and they do not gather the documents a court case needs. As of mid-2026, roughly 30 people were reported to have joined a potential claim, so this is moving. Waiting for an official announcement that may never come is how people lose the right to bring a case at all.
Why Lawyers Are Watching the Source Investigation
Histoplasma doesn’t blanket a community by accident. Outbreaks of this kind are classically traced to a specific activity that threw contaminated soil into the air: excavation and land clearing, demolition, chicken coop or roost teardown, or construction over contaminated ground. Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station sit in one of Tennessee’s fastest-growing development corridors. The Tennessee Department of Health has not yet identified the outbreak’s source. If the investigation ties these infections to a negligent land disturbance by a developer, contractor, or property owner who churned contaminated soil without dust control near homes, schools, or workplaces, the sickened families may have significant legal claims. We are monitoring the investigation closely and preserving clients’ claims while it proceeds.
Who Should Call Us
- You lived, worked, or stayed in Spring Hill or Thompson’s Station (or nearby Williamson/Maury County areas) at any time from September 2025 to the present; and
- You were diagnosed with histoplasmosis, or a family member died with a histoplasmosis diagnosis; or
- You had a prolonged flu-like respiratory illness in that window that was never fully explained. A urine antigen test can still confirm past infection in many cases.
Symptoms and the Long Tail of This Illness
Most histoplasmosis infections look like a bad respiratory bug: fever, cough, fatigue, chest discomfort, headache, body aches, sometimes a rash or joint pain, typically starting three days to three weeks after exposure. That resemblance is why so many people in this outbreak were treated for pneumonia or told they had a virus, and why some were never tested at all.
The severe form is a different illness. Families in Williamson and Maury counties have described heart complications, kidney injury, swollen lymph nodes, and persistent brain fog, along with months of antifungal treatment that carries hard side effects of its own. Disseminated histoplasmosis, where the infection spreads beyond the lungs, can be life-threatening and requires prolonged therapy. If you were sick last autumn, never got a clear answer, and still are not right, that history is worth documenting now.
Evidence to Preserve Right Now
Start with proof of where you were. Addresses, work locations, school records, and even routine app location history establish that you spent time inside the affected radius during the exposure window. Then the medical side: every record from that autumn, including urgent care and emergency visits, chest imaging, and any antigen or antibody testing for histoplasmosis. If you were never tested and remain symptomatic, ask your doctor about testing now, because a diagnosis anchors everything.
Also useful: photographs or video of the construction and dust conditions if you took any, notes about when the dust was worst, records of your immunosuppressive medications or underlying conditions, and documentation of missed work and out-of-pocket costs. Neighbors who got sick at the same time matter too. Clusters are what these cases are proven on.
The Tennessee Deadline Problem
Tennessee’s personal injury statute of limitations is just one year — among the shortest in the country. The discovery rule can extend it where the cause wasn’t knowable, but families who wait for the state to finish its investigation risk losing claims before the source is ever named. The safe move is to preserve the claim now: document the diagnosis, the address history, and the timeline, and let counsel track the investigation.
What These Claims May Be Worth
No histoplasmosis outbreak case has been resolved here, so no one can honestly quote you a figure. Value in a case like this comes from medical expenses including hospitalization and long antifungal courses, lost income during months of illness, lasting organ damage, ongoing symptoms, and in the most tragic cases the loss of a family member. Wrongful death claims for families who lost someone in this outbreak are the most serious of these claims and carry their own Tennessee deadlines. What we can promise is a straight assessment of your situation, not a number designed to get you in the door.
Why Call Fob James Law Firm
We represent injury victims across Tennessee, and our attorneys handle Tennessee mass tort and environmental exposure claims alongside national litigation counsel, including cases pending in Tennessee federal and state courts. Free consultation, no fee unless we recover.
Tennessee Histoplasmosis Outbreak FAQs
Has the source of the Tennessee histoplasmosis outbreak been identified?
No. As of August 2026 the Tennessee Department of Health’s investigation is ongoing. Cases have clustered in Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station since September 2025, a pattern consistent with a localized soil disturbance, but no source has been publicly confirmed.
Can I sue if no source has been named yet?
A claim needs a responsible party, so most cases will firm up when the investigation does, but you should not wait to protect your rights. Tennessee’s one-year deadline makes early documentation critical, and attorneys can preserve claims and investigate independently while the state works.
I was sick for weeks last fall but never tested. Could it have been histoplasmosis?
Possibly. The outbreak’s earliest cases date to September 2025 and histoplasmosis is routinely mistaken for flu or pneumonia. A urine antigen test is fast and highly specific, and follow-up blood testing can confirm past infection. Talk to your doctor, and keep your medical records.
What would a histoplasmosis claim be worth?
It depends on the illness: weeks of antifungal treatment, hospitalization, permanent lung damage, or a family death are very different cases, and on what the source investigation shows. No honest lawyer can quote a number before liability is established.
I was immunosuppressed and got sick that autumn. Does that matter?
Considerably. Federal investigators found that about 65 percent of identified patients were immunosuppressed and that those patients were far more likely to be hospitalized. If you were on immunosuppressive therapy, in cancer treatment, living with an autoimmune condition, or post-transplant, tell us; it affects both the medical picture and the seriousness of the claim.
How close to the site did I have to be?
Investigators looked at people who lived or spent significant time within roughly a 3.8-mile radius on the Williamson and Maury county line. That covers a lot of Spring Hill and Thompson’s Station. Work, school, and regular errands inside that area count, not just where you slept.
A family member died after an illness that autumn. What can we do?
Contact us promptly. Wrongful death claims carry their own Tennessee deadlines, and the medical records establishing what happened need to be secured while they are complete. These are the most serious claims arising from this outbreak.
How long do I actually have to file in Tennessee?
Tennessee generally allows only one year for personal injury claims, which is among the shortest deadlines in the country and far shorter than in Alabama or Georgia. For an illness that began in the autumn of 2025, that window is closing or may already have closed depending on your dates. Call before assuming either way.
Talk to a Tennessee Histoplasmosis Lawyer
If this outbreak reached your family, get your diagnosis documented and your claim preserved before Tennessee’s short deadline decides for you. Call Fob James Law Firm, LLC at (205) 407-6009 or contact us online. Free consultation, no fee unless we win.
Fob James Law Firm currently represents approximately 850 people across the country in toxic exposure cases.