Secretary of the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has made his objective to “make America wholesome once more” clear — however do his actions align along with his mission? To reply this query, it’s essential to recollect well being isn’t nearly avoiding components and counting energy.
In the case of meals hygiene and public well being, RFK Jr. is spearheading a worrisome pattern: shrinking the nation’s already splintered meals security community by revoking legal guidelines, slashing budgets, and enacting layoffs. All of those actions additional scale back the administration’s means to supervise what few laws stay, placing American well being in danger.
In truth, the 2026 FDA finances proposes an total discount in full-time staffing throughout the board. In April, each member of the administration’s media communications group and the US Justice Division unit that after dealt with drug and meals security circumstances on behalf of the FDA was disbanded1. That is the unit that after introduced a prison case towards former executives at Peanut Company for crimes that led to a 2009 outbreak involving greater than 700 circumstances of Salmonella poisoning.
Phyllis Entis, a meals security microbiologist with greater than 50 years of expertise, tells Meals Security Information that these are “determined occasions2.” She cites a variety of predictions round issues that might have an effect on the meals system going ahead — listed below are the 4 we’re most involved about.
1. Lowered Consideration to Foodborne Illness Outbreaks
One of many main roles of the FDA is tracing foodborne illness outbreaks to assist scale back their unfold. In 2024 alone, the company investigated 26 outbreaks and recognized the supply of 20. In distinction, to this point in 2025, the FDA has closed its investigation of 11 outbreaks after figuring out the supply of solely 4; 11 extra outbreaks stay underneath investigation, with an extra 4 sources recognized. Briefly, we’re taking a look at a 36 % success fee as in comparison with final yr’s 77 %.
The Lowered Workforce Has a Direct Influence
That is no fluke; it’s immediately linked to the widespread layoffs. This summer season, the CDC lowered its lively surveillance of foodborne pathogens from six to only two (Salmonella and E coli), immediately citing lack of funding because the motivation for abandoning surveillance of Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Shigella, Yersinia, and Listeria3. FSIS has additionally proposed withdrawing a baseline threshold of Salmonella contamination in hen4.
These surveillance pullbacks aren’t coming at a good time — a present listeria outbreak has been ongoing since June, affecting merchandise in 15 states5. Listeria was additionally the supply of a Boar’s Head deli meat contamination final summer season that finally led to the deaths of ten individuals6. Up to now, 20 confirmed circumstances of listeria have been linked to the outbreak, and no less than 4 individuals have died; a pregnant lady has additionally skilled fetal loss on account of a associated an infection.
Different rollbacks have led to the firing or departure of 20,000 employees from the Division of Well being and Human Providers. This discount of the workforce has led to the suspension of each a high quality management program for the testing of contemporary milk and produce, in addition to one other program designed to make sure consistency and accuracy throughout its 170-lab community that assessments meals for pathogens and contaminants.
Former USDA inspector Paula Soldner, who took a voluntary early retirement in Could, instructed NPR that she was involved that the remaining inspectors can be incapable of visiting the variety of services their job now required — eight per day moderately than the standard 47. “Do I foresee one other Boar’s Head scenario? Completely,” she instructed the outlet. “I fear concerning the public.”
2. A Fingers-Off Strategy to Livestock Illnesses May Trigger a New Pandemic
Within the midst of lowered meals security surveillance, livestock illnesses are additionally rising an increasing number of worrisome. As superbacteria run rampant, outbreaks like avian flu change into tougher to comprise8. This specific outbreak of the H5N1 virus (hen flu) has been ongoing since 2020 and has led to hundreds of thousands of hen slaughters, outbreaks in dairy cattle, and no less than one confirmed human demise9.
As a result of the virus results in mortality in practically 100% of the circumstances in home chickens, some have instructed the perfect resolution to the outbreak is calculated culling10. Nevertheless, Kennedy and the Secretary of Agriculture have proposed a extra hands-off strategy, calling for hen flu to “rip via” contaminated flocks. Most specialists are vehemently against this strategy, as exemplified by an argument printed by a gaggle of virologists, veterinarians, and well being safety specialists this summer season in Science11. Within the report, they wrote that this plan would probably pave the way in which for a real pandemic — and pose much more dangers for human well being.
“Primarily, the longer you permit a virus that has proven to be efficient in infecting a number of hosts survive in an setting, the larger the possibility you give it to unfold, to mutate, and to attempt its luck at adaptation,” the report’s writer Erin Sorrell, a virologist on the Johns Hopkins Middle for Well being Safety, instructed Stay Science12. “Worse case situation, the virus adapts and expands its host vary to change into transmissible in people … Now we’ve a pandemic.”
Kennedy’s proposed hands-off strategy is probably going linked, as soon as extra, to workers cuts. Although specialists say that the easiest way to fight hen flu can be to enhance knowledge sharing, improve surveillance of viral unfold, and work with interdisciplinary groups, cuts on the USDA’s Animal and Plant Well being Inspection Service have fairly merely lowered the company’s means to fight this and different livestock illnesses.
3. Layoffs Endanger Planning for the Way forward for Important Well being and Diet Traits
In accordance with a information launch from the American Society for Diet, layoffs on the CDC’s Nationwide Middle for Well being Statistics have jeopardized the way forward for the Nationwide Well being and Diet Examination Survey (NHANES), which hinders our means to watch and perceive vital well being and diet developments.
The personnel that misplaced their jobs in a large spate of layoffs this month have been liable for a survey relationship to the early ‘60s assessing the well being and dietary standing of hundreds of thousands of People13. This knowledge is used to information federal policymaking, together with meals labeling, dietary guidances, and diet analysis priorities, influencing billions of {dollars} in federal investments. This survey has beforehand knowledgeable public well being points like the results of lead in petrol, and now it’s susceptible to disappearing.
Former CDC workers member Asher Rosinger, an epidemiologist at Pennsylvania State College in College Park, instructed Nature that as a result of layoffs, “this gold customary survey could not have the ability to function sooner or later.”
4. Anti-Migrant Insurance policies Lead to a Lowered Capability to Produce Secure, Wholesome Crops
Not all the points plaguing our meals system are linked to finances cuts. The Trump administration’s deportation raids have severely lowered the nation’s means to provide sufficient meals domestically, in line with a submitting to the Federal Register submitted on Oct. 2 by the Division of Labor. Trump’s anti-migrant insurance policies pose a risk to the “stability of home meals manufacturing and costs for U.S customers,” says the submitting. The Division says this can be a reflection of a “structural, not cyclical, workforce disaster.”
Business insiders agree. In a press launch, the Nationwide Milk Producers Federation wrote that “aggressive immigration enforcement, together with on dairies, can’t assist however increase issues.” And in line with the Guardian, the widespread deportation plans are positive to result in “main disruptions throughout the meals system,” in addition to rising costs for a lot of staples nationwide.
Compounded with Trump’s new tariffs on imports, this might make produce prohibitively costly for a lot of People. Particularly as we come into colder months after we sometimes rely extra on south-of-the-border imports, entry to wholesome meals is prone to change into tougher — a far cry from making America wholesome once more.
Sources:
- https://www.reuters.com/enterprise/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-justice-department-unit-drug-food-safety-cases-being-disbanded-2025-04-25/
- https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2025/09/trump-aided-by-rfk-jr-is-dismantling-the-u-s-food-safety-network/
- https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/foodborne-disease/cdc-cuts-back-foodborne-illness-surveillance-program
- https://www.fsis.usda.gov/coverage/federal-register-rulemaking/federal-register-rules/salmonella-framework-raw-poultry-products
- https://eu.usatoday.com/story/cash/meals/2025/10/13/pasta-recall-listeria-outbreak/86664343007/
- https://epi.ufl.edu/2024/12/10/why-listeria-a-less-common-foodborne-pathogen-is-so-deadly/
- https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/29/nx-s1-5413449/food-safety-inspection-fda-usda
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38927217/
- https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4897471/
- https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx8639
- https://www.livescience.com/well being/flu/rfks-proposal-to-let-bird-flu-spread-through-poultry-could-set-us-up-for-a-pandemic-experts-warn
- https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03365-1
