FDA Halts Food Safety Inspections After Jobs Purge

With as many as 20,000 staffers let go at the Department of Health and Human Services in the DOGE purge, and with President Trump aiming to slash $40 billion from the agency, services are shuttering at every turn. The latest victim: a Food and Drug Administration quality control program in 170 or so food testing labs, designed to look for pathogens and other contaminants in what we eat that could lead to illness, or worse. Reuters reports that the program, part of the FDA's Food Emergency Response Network, will be out of commission through at least Sept. 30, meaning there won't be quality control around lab tests for parasites in spinach or pesticides in barley, among others, per a FERN email.

Federal health officials tell CBS News that plans are being drawn up that divert oversight over some of these tasks to state and local authorities, though they note the plans are still in the works and may need Congress to OK the financials. The FDA already outsources some lower-level food inspections via contracts with more than 40 states and Puerto Rico. Officials say some higher-risk inspections may remain at the FDA, including yearly visits to plants that make infant formula. CBS notes it's not clear what will happen with the handful of states that don't have such contracts. Some think outsourcing the quality control to the states may be a good move, as high-quality inspections can often be carried out for less money, according to advocates.

But the optimism about this proposal comes with caveats. "In theory, relying on states to do more routine food inspection work could lead to better food safety," Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, tells CBS. However, "so far, this administration has acted with reckless disregard for how its policies will affect the detection and prevention of foodborne illness, and any plans to replace federal food inspectors with some other workforce deserves suspicion." The New York Times last month reported on how else food safety could be compromised by recent staffing and funding cuts. (RFK Jr. says they want to bring back some of the fired HHS workers.)