The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has temporarily suspended its quality control programme for fresh milk and other dairy products.
This suspension arises from recent staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as reported by Reuters based on an internal email. Notably, the FDA operates within this government department.
Since President Donald Trump took office, approximately 20,000 staff have either departed or been dismissed from HHS, according to Reuters figures. Moreover, the US government has proposed a substantial cut of $40 billion to the HHS budget, as indicated by the Washington Post last week.
Recently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary appointed by Trump, faced significant criticism from various agencies and officials for advancing a series of threatened job cuts across government departments. Former FDA commissioner Robert Califf commented: “The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed.”
The cancellation of the testing programme for Grade ‘A’ raw milk and other finished products occurred at the FDA’s Moffett Center Proficiency Testing Laboratory. This decision stemmed from the laboratory’s inability to support proficiency testing and data analysis, as reported by Reuters on April 22.
Additionally, earlier this month, the FDA suspended its efforts to enhance testing for bird flu in milk and cheese, as well as for pathogens in other food products, according to the same news agency.
The programme, known as the Interlaboratory Comparison Exercise for detecting Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), was scheduled to launch later this month. However, it was suspended on April 1 due to staffing cuts within the FDA’s Human Food Program.
Separately, the FDA decided last week to suspend a quality control program for food testing laboratories until at least September 30, as reported by Reuters.
The Food Emergency Response Network’s (FERN) proficiency testing programme aimed to promote consistency and accuracy across a network of about 170 labs testing food for pathogens and contaminants to prevent food-borne illnesses.
The suspension implies that the agency will be unable to carry out planned quality control measures regarding lab testing for the parasite Cyclospora in spinach or the pesticide glyphosate in barley, among other essential tests, according to the news agency.
