Olde Hornet
Well-Known Member
How Trump admin cuts have compromised food safety
Since May, more than 11,000 cases of illness caused by the parasite cyclospora have been reported in 41 states. This comes after the Trump administration drastically cut FDA and CDC staff, prompting one expert to call this summer's outbreaks "a national wake-up call."
www.cbsnews.com
Outbreaks may occur because we are growing product outdoors," said York. "Some bacteria just occur naturally within an environment. They just exist. And so, we control as much of the ecosystem as we can."
Eventually, every discussion of food safety rolls around to the government. Susan Mayne acknowledged that food safety budgets have been under-resourced for decades.
But during President Trump's second term, the FDA has lost about 20% of its staff; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is down 25%. The CDC used to have 11 scientists tracking food parasites; now it's three.
"We had a national advisory committee, a committee that advised FDA and USDA on how to prevent microbial contamination in food," said Mayne. "That advisory committee was disbanded. We used to convene meetings with our Mexican counterparts on how we can work together to improve food safety. That entire team was let go."