For the past few years, foodborne pathogens have had devastating consequences and have been on the public's alert. Infant formula sick baby bacteria. Deli meat on the Listeria killed 10 people and was hospitalized in 19 states. A lead-containing apple sauce pouch will poison young children.
At each outbreak, state and federal officials connected each sick person's dot to contaminated products so that recalled food was pulled out of the shelf.
Some of these employees and their specific role in the outbreak of the end of life are now threatened by the Trump administration's measures to increase government efficiency. This is in addition to the cuts already being made by the Food and Drug Administration's chronically underfunded food sector.
Like the food safety system itself, reductions and new administrative hurdles are spreading across an array of federal and state agencies.
The Food and Drug Administration has prevented staff from purchasing food to carry out routine testing for deadly bacteria due to the freeze in government credit card spending ordered by the Trump administration. In the state, a $34 million reduction by the FDA could reduce the number of employees who ensure that contaminated products, such as lead-containing applesauce tin pouches sold in 2023, are being tested in the lab and in-store. FDA staff are also prepared for further staff reductions in the Trump administration.
And the committee to study deadly bacteria has recently dissolved, even though the agricultural sector was developing advice on how to improve target pathogens that can closure the kidneys. Committee members were also devising educational plans for new parents of bacteria that could live in powdered infant formula. “A further work on reports and recommendations will be prohibited,” read the Trump administration's email to committee members.
To sum up, there is concern in the food safety sector that the number of outbreaks will increase or avoidance detection will be possible. By limiting resources, cutbacks aim to prevent problems and focus their efforts on cases where someone has already been hurt or killed, said Darrin Detwiler, a food safety consultant and associate professor at Northeastern University. His infant son died in 1993 from an E. coli outbreak.
“If there's no sufficient information, what's a good way for someone to save money on a car?” he asked. “Let's take out the seat belt and airbag. Is it because you really need it?”
National Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a strong interest in food. He has already committed to removing color additives from food, and has begun an effort called “Opera Speed” to examine the nutritional content and potential toxins in infant formula. However, some of the most dangerous food problems in recent years have come from pathogens.
About 500 people were hospitalized last year, with 19 people twice as many deaths or more from known causes, according to the USPIRG Education Fund, an advocacy group. (Most food poisoning is not reported or traced to certain foods.)
Government cuts have impacted many areas where staff are reinforced to prevent the recurring of recent outbreaks. Details of some of the changes are as follows:
Major committees have been closed
In many cases, in response to a fatal outbreak, the Joint FDA and the Agricultural Division Committee jumped into detail, exploring ways to improve detection and limit disease and death. The committee also considered ways to deploy rapidly changing technologies, including artificial intelligence and genomic sequencing, to protect public health.
The Trump administration suddenly shut down the committee earlier this month, citing an executive order to reduce the government's bureaucracy. It called for the work of the National Advisory Committee on Food Microbiological Standards and the Panel, called the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Testing.
The Microbiology Committee was studying ways to more accurately identify infants at the highest risk of Chronobacter Sakazaki, a deadly bacteria that contributed to the decision to temporarily close the Abbott Nutritional Infant Formula Plant in Michigan in 2022.
Abby Snyder, a food scientist at Cornell University and co-chair of the Subcommittee on Prescriptions for Toddlers, said he was disappointed with the decision to cancel the committee's work. “I think the safety of formula formula for babies is very important and important for most people,” Dr. Snyder said.
The FDA did not answer questions about whether its food division chief Kyle Diamantas was involved in the decision to x the committee. Diamantas, a former corporate lawyer, worked on a case defending Abbott over allegations of harm related to infant prescriptions.
Michael Hansen, a scientist and member of the committee for the advocacy group Consumer Report, said his team on the committee is trying to identify certain types of E. coli, among other efforts, that are most likely to cause bloody diarrhea and kidney failure.
He said the decision to close the committee was a shock and disrupted almost two years of work on utilizing genome sequencing, which is now widely available and affordable, to limit the outbreak. The team used the time to volunteer from top experts in the field, he said.
“It makes no sense that they're removing this committee,” Dr. Hansen said.
Spending is frozen
Scientists at the FDA's Product and Food Testing Lab said that the daily use of government credit cards was banned due to an executive order that supports Elon Musk's so-called government efficiency efforts.
An exception has been made to “critical activities,” according to an FDA spokesperson.
This has slowed down some testing of dangerous bacterial grocery items, and slowed or stopped monitoring shellfish and food packaging for chemicals related to cancer and reproduction.
Credit cards can be used to investigate listeria of frozen supplementary shaking distributed to elder care homes associated with dozens of deaths. Regarding other jobs, staff have come across a deficit, the agency scientist said.
“It's important for hours in an outbreak,” said Susan Maine, an adjunct professor at Yale School of Public Health and a former FDA food official who heard about the situation from current employees. “If you're dealing with products that can kill someone, delays are not acceptable.”
Food Safety Inspection
In a recent letter to lawmakers, FDA officials said the agency had hired around 443 food safety inspectors. The agency estimated that around 1,500 workers were needed to inspect high-risk producers once every five years, or once every three years.
At this time, those inspectors are mostly exempt from losing their jobs.
But one team of outbreak agents is vulnerable, according to Jim Jones, food director at the Biden administration's late agency. The team, known as Core, coordinates with centers for disease control and prevention to connect clusters of sick people to specific food plants or fields of farmers. The team tracks inspections and efforts to ensure contaminated food is removed from store shelves.
Jones said the team was recently built as the complete remote operation that would most likely be affected when an order was introduced this month to return to federal work. Workers who live more than 50 miles from their FDA offices must start working on federal sites until late April.
“So their choice is that you either move so you can go to the federal facility or you leave,” Jones said. “There's nothing strategic about who gets caught up in that pickle.”
Throughout the FDA, testing has plummeted during the pandemic and has not returned to higher levels before 2020. At the same time, the volume of imported foods has increased, including clams that have been repeatedly found to be contaminated with PFA.
State cuts
When the FDA identifies the factories that are causing the contamination, it often relies on state inspectors to investigate on-site. In criticizing the cuts, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, noted that state inspectors made about half of inspections at food processing facilities, 90% of agricultural safety inspections, and all of the retailers' visits.
The FDA will also look to state and local public health officials to pick contaminated food from grocery store shelves and test it in a network of 55 public health labs across the United States. If a product is recalled, state officials will also audit grocery stores to ensure that food has been removed.
The late Biden era movements sharply restricted the funds the FDA sent to labs that had important work with the state. The latest $34 million funding cut also applies to the state and their public health labs. The agency said in a letter to Blumenthal that the food sector has a flat budget and cuts are being made as costs increase due to inflation.
Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Tom Petersen said the FDA's food safety funding has been steadily declining since 2019, with the latest cuts deep and likely lead to layoffs. He said the loss of funds could delay the important task of pulling bad food from the store.
The piece proved particularly important after discovering a very high level of lead in cinnamon, a children's applesauce pouch snack. The FDA ended up sending a warning letter to Dollar Tree because it didn't pull the pouch quickly.
“Timing is an important piece,” Petersen said. “We want to take care of them and work on them.”
The Institute of Public Health reported that funds reached approximately 30% of the funds.
For example, in the wild boar Headlisteria outbreak, lab officials in Maryland and New York acquired Riverwurst in stores that tested positive for the same tension that made people sick. Lab trade groups predicted that budget cuts could slow responses, leading to more people getting sick.
