Safety of Food Supply Threatened by FDA Spending Freeze

Food safety experts in and outside the agency agree that the food program’s budget was already inadequate to carry out the amount of oversight required even before the new administration took over this year. Indeed, some of the budget cuts to outbreak rapid response teams now going into effect were first proposed under the previous administration’s FDA, says Steven Mandernach, executive director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials, a trade association for health and medical product professionals.

But the newer changes are making a bad situation worse, he says. “If we get another applesauce outbreak, there are going to be fewer boots on the ground who are going to the dollar stores and making sure they actually take that product off the shelves,” Mandernach says.

Stephen Ostroff, previously the deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at the FDA and now retired, says the food side of the FDA has been “resource-poor” compared with the medical products side for decades. The drug side of the FDA relies heavily on industry user fees, while the food side is almost entirely reliant on appropriations from Congress, Ostroff says, and those appropriations are never enough.

“If the food program was challenged to begin with in fulfilling its oversight duties, I don’t know how anybody can expect that it’s going to get better if you cut their budget and get rid of a lot of their staff,” Ostroff says. 

Michael Taylor, Ostroff’s predecessor as the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, echoes Ostroff’s views.

“The food program has never been fully funded, even to meet the basic inspection frequency mandates in the law,” Taylor says. “It’s just so destructive,” he says of the most recent cuts at the agency. “It’s like another dagger to the capacity of the agency, and it will have lasting consequences.”

The FDA did not immediately respond to CR’s questions about the suspension of the agency’s employees’ credit cards and the implications for the agency’s work and the safety of the U.S. food supply.

Consumer Reports experts denounce the FDA’s austerity moves, and warn about the dangers they pose for public health. “It’s alarming to think that, with the potential of additional cuts forthcoming, the FDA could be underresourced to the point where it won’t be able to perform essential oversight of the food supply,” says Brian Ronholm, head of food policy for CR. “Outbreaks and recalls could worsen, and consumers will be on their own and beholden to industry actions.”

That is why the current FDA staffers say they want to get the word out about the implications of the spending freeze.

“Our ability to test for contaminants was already strapped, but now this is just a sledgehammer coming after everything,” says another current FDA employee who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “I don’t think people realize how bad this is. We need to get this out there for there to be some public pressure.”