{"id":24311,"date":"2025-03-19T13:29:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T14:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24311"},"modified":"2025-03-19T15:25:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:25:01","slug":"food-safety-jeopardized-by-onslaught-of-funding-and-staff-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=24311","title":{"rendered":"Food Safety Jeopardized by Onslaught of Funding and Staff Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Trump administration halted some food testing and shut down a committee studying bacteria in infant formula. Earlier funding cutbacks under the Biden administration now threaten state labs and inspectors.<\/p>\n

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In the last few years, foodborne pathogens have had devastating consequences that alarmed the public. Bacteria in infant formula sickened babies. Deli meat ridden with listeria killed 10 people and led to 60 hospitalizations in 19 states. Lead-laden applesauce pouches poisoned young children.<\/p>\n

In each outbreak, state and federal officials connected the dots from each sick person to a tainted product and ensured the recalled food was pulled off the shelves.<\/p>\n

Some of those employees and their specific roles in ending outbreaks are now threatened by Trump administration measures to increase government efficiency, which come on top of cuts already being made by the Food and Drug Administration\u2019s chronically underfunded food division.<\/p>\n

Like the food safety system itself, the cutbacks and new administrative hurdles are spread across an array of federal and state agencies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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At the Food and Drug Administration, freezes on government credit card spending ordered by the Trump administration have impeded staff members from buying food to perform routine tests for deadly bacteria. In states, a $34 million cut by the F.D.A. could reduce the number of employees who ensure that tainted products \u2014 like tin pouches of lead-laden applesauce sold in 2023 \u2014 are tested in labs and taken off store shelves. F.D.A. staff members are also bracing for further Trump administration personnel reductions.<\/p>\n

And at the Agriculture Department, a committee studying deadly bacteria was recently disbanded, even as it was developing advice on how to better target pathogens that can shut down the kidneys. Committee members were also devising an education plan for new parents on bacteria that can live in powdered infant formula. \u201cFurther work on your report and recommendations will be prohibited,\u201d read a Trump administration email to the committee members.<\/p>\n

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The Trump administration halted some food testing and shut down a committee studying bacteria in infant formula. Earlier funding cutbacks under the Biden administration now threaten state labs and inspectors.In the last few years, foodborne pathogens have had devastating consequences that alarmed the public. Bacteria in infant formula sickened babies. Deli meat ridden with listeria killed 10 people and led to 60 hospitalizations in 19 states. Lead-laden applesauce pouches poisoned young children.In each outbreak, state and federal officials connected the dots from each sick person to a tainted product and ensured the recalled food was pulled off the shelves.Some of those employees and their specific roles in ending outbreaks are now threatened by Trump administration measures to increase government efficiency, which come on top of cuts already being made by the Food and Drug Administration\u2019s chronically underfunded food division.Like the food safety system itself, the cutbacks and new administrative hurdles are spread across an array of federal and state agencies.At the Food and Drug Administration, freezes on government credit card spending ordered by the Trump administration have impeded staff members from buying food to perform routine tests for deadly bacteria. In states, a $34 million cut by the F.D.A. could reduce the number of employees who ensure that tainted products \u2014 like tin pouches of lead-laden applesauce sold in 2023 \u2014 are tested in labs and taken off store shelves. F.D.A. staff members are also bracing for further Trump administration personnel reductions.And at the Agriculture Department, a committee studying deadly bacteria was recently disbanded, even as it was developing advice on how to better target pathogens that can shut down the kidneys. Committee members were also devising an education plan for new parents on bacteria that can live in powdered infant formula. \u201cFurther work on your report and recommendations will be prohibited,\u201d read a Trump administration email to the committee members.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24313,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24314,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24311\/revisions\/24314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}