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LetMyPeopleVote

(161,908 posts) Tue Apr 22, 2025, 06:55 PM Tuesday

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

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.

6 replies

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Highlight:

Tough to swallow: The Trump administration's approach to food safety keeps getting worse (Original Post) LetMyPeopleVote Tuesday OP

Some of the people who benefit most from food stamps and programs are US farmers. marble falls Tuesday #1

Due to the Trump administration's unlawful reductions in capacity pat_k Tuesday #2

This deserves its own posting RockCreek Tuesday #4

Maha equals make america dead Meowmee Tuesday #3

Yes MAGAMAD Make America Dead. Irish_Dem Tuesday #5

The CDC estimates that US food borne illnesses result in 48 million cases, Irish_Dem Tuesday #6

marble falls

(64,816 posts)

1. Some of the people who benefit most from food stamps and programs are US farmers.

Reply to LetMyPeopleVote (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 06:58 PM

Tuesday

pat_k

(11,156 posts)

2. Due to the Trump administration's unlawful reductions in capacity

Reply to LetMyPeopleVote (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 07:06 PM

Tuesday

Unilaterally withholding funds appropriated by Congress, unilaterally slashing budgets established by Congress, unilateral, indiscriminate mass firings that render an agency incapable of fulfilling its Congressional mandate, are all crimes.

They are violating constitutional separation of powers principles, the Take Care Clause, and various administrate laws in plain sight.

Every time we reference a cut, "reduction in capacity," recission of funds, or mass firing without noting it was done in violation of the Constitution and multiple laws, we are on their turf. Every time we fail to insert the modifier "illegal" or "unconstitutional" when discussing this or that action, the implicit message is that the 47 regime is doing things that are within its power to do and we are just upset about it -- politics as usual.

We must repeat over, and over, and over, and over. Make it a habit. Repeat until you are sick to death of hearing yourself say it.

And encourage electeds who believe in the rule of law to do the same.

If we don't learn to be repetitious on the basic realities of what they are doing, we are not climbing out of this