It’s been nearly two decades, but during George W. Bush’s second term, historian Rick Perlstein coined a memorable phrase: “E. coli conservatism.” The slogan coincided with a rash of food safety controversies that were tied to lax governmental safeguards.
The point of the phrase, of course, was to convey a larger policy point: When government pulls back on regulations that protect the public, there are often hazardous consequences. (Though the video is no longer online, “The Rachel Maddow Show” had a great segment on this back in 2011, which I wrote about before I joined the team.)
Years later, there’s another Republican administration with some risky ideas about food safety — and by any fair measure, it appears “E. coli conservatism” has mutated into something even worse. NBC News reported:
A federal-state partnership that monitors for foodborne illnesses quietly scaled back its operations nearly two months ago. As of July 1, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) program has reduced surveillance to just two pathogens: salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told NBC News.
According to the reporting, the FoodNet program was tracking infections caused by six additional pathogens, some of which can lead to severe or life-threatening illnesses, up until last month. But as NBC News’ report added, monitoring for the six pathogens “is no longer required for the 10 states that participate in the program.”
To be sure, states can still make related efforts on their own, but without federal funding, it’s unlikely that states will have the necessary resources.
Dr. J. Glenn Morris, who’s the director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, a former Agriculture Department official and the doctor who helped create FoodNet in 1995, told NBC News: “Essentially, CDC is backing off on one of their best surveillance systems.”
Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University, added: “A lot of the work that I and many, many, many, many other people have put into improving food safety over the past 20 or 30 years is just going away.”
Complicating matters further is the familiarity of the circumstances.
In April, for example, Reuters reported that the Food and Drug Administration was suspending a quality control program for testing dairy products “due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division.”
A week earlier, Reuters 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 President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services 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 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.” The day before the Times published that report, the newspaper ran a related article that noted, “At the Food and Drug Administration, freezes on government credit card spending ordered by the Trump administration have impeded staff members from buying food to perform routine tests for deadly bacteria.” 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. 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. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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