Following the Trump-Vance Administration’s funding cuts that affect the safety and quality control of food products, food safety experts are concerned for eaters’ health.
In the last few months, firings and mass resignations have resulted in significant cuts to the workforce at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Affected teams include those that oversee food safety and quality control, impacting their ability to carry out their work.
The FDA, for example, recently announced they are suspending a quality control program for its food testing laboratories due to staff cuts. The program is designed to ensure consistency and accuracy across a wide network of labs that test food for pathogens and contaminants.
“Our federal food safety system is teetering on the brink of a collapse,” warns Sarah Sorscher, Director of Regulatory Affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), including the Feed the Future Program, is also raising food safety concerns abroad. As the Trump-Vance Administration worked to close the agency, they pulled funding for nearly all of the Feed the Future Innovation Labs, including those that helped make the global food supply chain safer.
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), a collaborative effort between Purdue University and Cornell University, worked to reduce the burden of foodborne diseases in countries from Nepal and Bangladesh to Kenya and Nigeria. Another Innovation Lab at Kansas State University worked to improve post-harvest storage practices and maintain food safety for producers around the globe.
And food safety is not only about preventing harm, says Markus Lipp, Senior Food Safety Officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. “It is about creating confidence and trust in the food we eat, in the systems that protect us, that protect food safety and in the institutions that serve the public good for safe food.”
In advance of World Food Safety Day on June 7, read more about the role that everyone plays in making sure that all eaters have access to healthy, affordable—and safe—food in a new piece on Forbes.
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Photo courtesy of Meizhi Lang
