Even before the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) eliminated 10,000 jobs on April 1, people who watched the agency closely were concerned about food safety.

Under a Biden-era reorganization, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cut millions of dollars for state-level food inspections, effective this year. Inspections of facilities were not keeping up with Congressional directives; the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in Jan. 2025 urging the FDA to “strengthen inspection efforts to protect the U.S. food supply.” And advocates were concerned because major parts of the landmark 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act—including rules that farmers must monitor the water they spray on vegetables for manure—were being delayed or rolled back.

“We have always had a problem with having adequate funding and staffing for the level of complication that is food safety in the U.S.,” says Darin Detwiler, a food safety advocate whose toddler son died of E. coli poisoning in 1993 during an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants. This lack of funding has coincided with a number of food illness outbreaks in the U.S. in recent years—including, in 2024 alone, an E. coli outbreak linked to slivered onions at McDonald’s that killed one person, an E. coli outbreak linked to organic carrots sold in grocery stores (which also caused a fatality), and a listeria outbreak linked to Boar’s Head deli meat that resulted in 10 deaths.

Then came the job cuts. At the FDA, 2,500 people were laid off, including workers in the Human Foods Program, who are tasked with ensuring food safety, and scientists at a product safety lab in San Francisco that tests foods for bacteria. Also gutted were communications staff at both FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who helped coordinate response to outbreaks and informed both consumers and businesses about recalled food. And hundreds of workers at CDC’s Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice lost their jobs; the organization coordinated government response to an outbreak of lead poisoning in 2023 linked to cinnamon applesauce pouches.