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Botany

(73,913 posts) Tue Apr 22, 2025, 02:38 PM Tuesday

Trump wants to kill us. US FDA suspends milk quality tests amid workforce cuts. A must read.

This is madness. US FDA suspends milk quality tests amid workforce cuts.

So I might be wrong but it looks like Elon’s gutting of the US FDA has now cut
so many workers that we can longer test milk for pathogens. Like we have been
doing for something like 100 years.

Just one more example of Trump trying to burn America to the ground.

*******

US FDA suspends milk quality tests amid workforce cuts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality control program for testing of fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

The suspension is another disruption to the nation's food safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of President Donald Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce.

The FDA this month also suspended existing and developing programs that ensured accurate testing for bird flu in milk and cheese and pathogens like the parasite Cyclospora in other food products.

Effective Monday, the agency suspended its proficiency testing program for Grade "A" raw milk and finished products, according to the email sent in the morning from the FDA's Division of Dairy Safety and addressed to "Network Laboratories."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-fda-suspends-milk-quality-211319846.html

Thanks to DUer Eugene for posting this first.

15 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Trump wants to kill us. US FDA suspends milk quality tests amid workforce cuts. A must read. (Original Post) Botany Tuesday OP

I've had Brucellosis and it was no fun. It took a long time to diagnose and a long time for antibiotics ... marble falls Tuesday #1

This will also destroy the dairy industry MadameButterfly Tuesday #2

"Man, is anybody talking to this guy besides Putin?" Botany Tuesday #3

RFK might be against pasteurization MadameButterfly Tuesday #5

The dairy industry is evil. JanMichael Tuesday #13

My mom got a virus from unpasteurized milk FirstLight Tuesday #4

I don't think this will cover pasteurization of milk Botany Tuesday #6

Republicans need to be educated about the benefits of milk bucolic_frolic Tuesday #7

Tough to swallow: The Trump administration's approach to food safety keeps getting worse LetMyPeopleVote Tuesday #8

TUBERCULOSIS for EVERYONE! yay! Maru Kitteh Tuesday #9

Egg zac Lee Botany Tuesday #10

No you seriously can get tuberculosis from unpasturized milk from Maru Kitteh Tuesday #11

I haven't had milk in 15 years. I wonder if they're going to screw up oat milk? JanMichael Tuesday #12

Each or every two, three days something as bad or worse erupts from drumphf and Co. electric_blue68 Tuesday #14

The favorite drink of RFK jr. VGNonly Tuesday #15

marble falls

(64,816 posts)

1. I've had Brucellosis and it was no fun. It took a long time to diagnose and a long time for antibiotics ...

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 02:50 PM

Tuesday

... to work, and it's not certain if it's eradicated or gone dormant in a joint.

This was a common disease 100 years ago and was fatal often. Enforced regulations about ended it in milk production, the only others I know who got it were veterinarians who were inoculating cattle and/or buffalo for it and got stuck.

I have no idea where I got it.

MadameButterfly

(2,874 posts)

2. This will also destroy the dairy industry

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 02:59 PM

Tuesday

Man, is anybody talking to this guy besides Putin?

Botany

(73,913 posts)

3. "Man, is anybody talking to this guy besides Putin?"

Reply to MadameButterfly (Reply #2)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 03:02 PM

Tuesday

RFK Jr maybe.

MadameButterfly

(2,874 posts)

5. RFK might be against pasteurization

Reply to Botany (Reply #3)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 03:11 PM

Tuesday

(i'm just guessing o that--please don't quote me) but that would make him FOR testing, not against it.
Though I get your point. Those two still getting along. For now. Similarly completely illogical.

JanMichael

(25,575 posts)

13. The dairy industry is evil.

Reply to MadameButterfly (Reply #2)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 07:46 PM

Tuesday

The cow impregnation devices were designed by demented engineers. I wouldn't bother looking it up. It's disturbing.

FirstLight

(14,980 posts)

4. My mom got a virus from unpasteurized milk

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 03:06 PM

Tuesday

She lived on a farm back in Mississippi growing up so this would have been the early 40s. Basically the virus went into her heart muscle and she had a heart murmur for a year. She told me she was in the children's hospital out here in Oakland cuz that was right after the family moved across country with the railroad.

Botany

(73,913 posts)

6. I don't think this will cover pasteurization of milk

Reply to FirstLight (Reply #4)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 03:16 PM

Tuesday

But it is along the lines of getting us out of a global pandemic task force, removing
our epidemiologist from Wahun, China prior to the outbreak of COVID, and then sending
all our PPE to China (Trump and Kushner owed them money) just before the disease
really hit America so we had our doctors, nurses and 1st responders wearing homemade
masks and garbage bags and people died.

Science works if you work the science.

bucolic_frolic

(49,929 posts)

7. Republicans need to be educated about the benefits of milk

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 04:10 PM

Tuesday

LetMyPeopleVote

(161,908 posts)

8. Tough to swallow: The Trump administration's approach to food safety keeps getting worse

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 06:59 PM

Tuesday

Those who backed the Republican ticket may not have realized they were voting to scale back food-safety safeguards, but that’s what they’re getting.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3lngfhhaxms2c

The good news is that the Trump administration's approach to food safety only matters to Americans who eat food.

For everyone else, we're overdue for an important conversation.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/tough-swallow-trump-administrations-approach-food-safety-keeps-getting-rcna202437

The good news is that the Trump administration’s controversial approach to food safety only matters to Americans who eat food. For everyone else, however, there’s cause for some concern. Reuters reported:

The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality control program for testing of fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters. ... The FDA this month also suspended existing and developing programs that ensured accurate testing for bird flu in milk and cheese and pathogens like the parasite Cyclospora in other food products.

.....In fact, it was just last week when Reuters also reported that the Trump administration was “suspending a quality control program for its food testing laboratories as a result of staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services.”

That news came two weeks after The New York Times reported that Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the department’s conspiratorial secretary, announced “wide-ranging cutbacks at federal health agencies,” including “scientists who tested food and drugs for contaminants or deadly bacteria.”

That news came two weeks after the Times also reported that the FDA delayed — by nearly three years — implementation of a requirement that food companies and grocers “rapidly trace contaminated food through the supply chain and pull it off the shelves.”.....

This came on the heels of multiple reports that the Trump administration disbanded two federal committees tasked with advising policymakers on food safety, the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.

Alas, the list keeps going. The Times also reported that the administration has “slowed or stopped some testing of grocery items for hazardous bacteria and monitoring of shellfish and food packaging for PFAS, chemicals linked to cancer and reproductive harm.”

And did I mention that the administration appointed Donald Trump Jr.’s hunting buddy to lead the FDA’s Human Foods Program, overseeing all nutrition and food safety activities? Because that happened, too.

I suspect many Americans who supported the Republican ticket last fall didn’t realize they were voting to scale back food-safety safeguards, but that’s what they’re getting.

Maru Kitteh

(30,091 posts)

9. TUBERCULOSIS for EVERYONE! yay!

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 07:24 PM

Tuesday

Now, you too will have an opportunity to die of good-old-fashioned CONSUMPTION, just like your forefathers did.

Botany

(73,913 posts)

10. Egg zac Lee

Reply to Maru Kitteh (Reply #9)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 07:32 PM

Tuesday

Who needs the scientists with their “fancy stuff?” And dairy farmers don’t want their
customers worried about the safety of buying there products.

Enjoy your measles with some bad milk.

Trump is seriously mentally ill.

Maru Kitteh

(30,091 posts)

11. No you seriously can get tuberculosis from unpasturized milk from

Reply to Botany (Reply #10)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 07:38 PM

Tuesday

infected cows. It was once a reasonably common mode of transmission. Long forgotten but destined it would seem for a comeback.

JanMichael

(25,575 posts)

12. I haven't had milk in 15 years. I wonder if they're going to screw up oat milk?

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 07:44 PM

Tuesday

electric_blue68

(20,971 posts)

14. Each or every two, three days something as bad or worse erupts from drumphf and Co.

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 07:55 PM

Tuesday

How low can one's jaw drop!

Do they think they'll all be protected from disease, and contaminated foods?

Maybe only millionaires+ who can afford maybe shipping in foods/meals with now safer, regulated items from Europe, Australia, Japan etc.
And even they just might have a nasty surprise or too.

VGNonly

(8,050 posts)

15. The favorite drink of RFK jr.

Reply to Botany (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 08:06 PM

Tuesday

Macerated road-kill raw-milk shakes! Yummy

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