Health
Food Safety Jeopardized by Onslaught of Funding and Staff Cuts
In the last few years, foodborne pathogens have had devastating consequences that alarmed the public. Bacteria in infant formula sickened babies. Deli meat ridden with listeria killed 10 people and led to 60 hospitalizations in 19 states. Lead-laden applesauce pouches poisoned young children.
In each outbreak, state and federal officials connected the dots from each sick person to a tainted product and ensured the recalled food was pulled off the shelves.
Some of those employees and their specific roles in ending outbreaks are now threatened by Trump administration measures to increase government efficiency, which come on top of cuts already being made by the Food and Drug Administration’s chronically underfunded food division.
Like the food safety system itself, the cutbacks and new administrative hurdles are spread across an array of federal and state agencies.
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. In states, a $34 million cut by the F.D.A. could reduce the number of employees who ensure that tainted products — like tin pouches of lead-laden applesauce sold in 2023 — are tested in labs and taken off store shelves. F.D.A. staff members are also bracing for further Trump administration personnel reductions.
And at the Agriculture Department, a committee studying deadly bacteria was recently disbanded, even as it was developing advice on how to better target pathogens that can shut down the kidneys. Committee members were also devising an education plan for new parents on bacteria that can live in powdered infant formula. “Further work on your report and recommendations will be prohibited,” read a Trump administration email to the committee members.
Taken together, there is concern in the food safety field that the number of outbreaks could grow or evade detection. By limiting resources, the cutbacks pare back work meant to prevent problems and to focus efforts on cases in which someone was already hurt or killed, Darin Detwiler, a food safety consultant and associate professor at Northeastern University, said. His toddler son died in an E. coli outbreak in 1993.
“It’s as if someone, without enough information, has said, What’s a good way to save money on our automobiles?” he asked. “Let’s just take out the seatbelts and airbags, because do we really need them?”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, has a keen interest in food. He has already pledged to get color additives out of food and started an effort called “Operation Stork Speed” to examine the nutritional content and potential toxins in infant formula. Yet some of the most dangerous food problems in recent years have been from pathogens.
Last year, nearly 500 people were hospitalized and 19 died from foodborne illnesses with a known cause, double or more than in the year before, according to the U.S. P.I.R.G. Education Fund, an advocacy group. (Most food poisoning is never reported or traced back to a particular food.)
Government cutbacks affect a number of areas that officials were shoring up to prevent repeats of recent outbreaks. Here are the details of some of the changes:
Key committees shut down
Often in response to a deadly outbreak, a joint F.D.A. and Agriculture Department committee dived into the details to seek ways to improve detection and to limit illness and death. The committee has also examined how to deploy rapidly changing technology — including artificial intelligence and genome sequencing — to protect public health.
The Trump administration abruptly shut down the committee earlier this month, citing the executive order on reducing government bureaucracy. It demanded that work stop for the panel called the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and also for the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.
The microbial committee was studying how to more accurately identify infants who would be most at risk from cronobacter sakazakii, the deadly bacteria that contributed to the decision to temporarily shut down an Abbott Nutrition infant formula plant in Michigan in 2022. The committee planned to then provide advice to caregivers who should use sterile liquid formula instead of powdered formula, which is not sterile.
Abby Snyder, a Cornell University food scientist and co-chair of a subcommittee on infant formula, said she was disappointed by the decision to discontinue the committee’s work. “Safety of powdered formula for infants is of critical importance and I think important to most people,” Dr. Snyder said.
The F.D.A. did not respond to a question about whether Kyle Diamantas, its food division chief, was involved in the decision to axe the committee. A former corporate lawyer, Mr. Diamantas worked on cases defending Abbott over claims of harm related to infant formula.
Michael Hansen, a scientist and member of the committee from Consumer Reports, an advocacy group, said his team on the committee was trying to pinpoint certain types of E. coli that were most likely to cause bloody diarrhea and kidney failure, among other efforts.
He said the decision to end the committee was a shock and destroyed almost two years of work on harnessing genomic sequencing — technology that is now widely available and affordable — to limit outbreaks. The team leveraged hours of volunteer work from the top experts in the field, he said.
“It makes no sense that they were getting rid of this committee,” Dr. Hansen said, “because if you want to do a full cost-benefit analysis, all the work that we were doing was actually free of charge.”
Spending freezes
Scientists at the F.D.A.’s product and food testing labs said they were barred from some routine use of their government credit cards because of an executive order backing the efforts of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
An exception has been made for “critical activities,” an F.D.A. spokeswoman said.
That 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.
Credit cards can be used in an investigation of listeria in frozen supplemental shakes dispensed in elder care homes that have been linked to a dozen deaths. For other work, staff members have encountered red tape, agency scientists said.
“Even hours can matter in an outbreak,” said Susan Mayne, an adjunct professor at Yale School of Public Health and a former F.D.A. food official who had heard from current employees about the situation. “Any delay is unacceptable when you’re dealing with a product that can kill someone.”
Food safety inspections
In a recent letter to lawmakers, F.D.A. officials said that the agency employed about 443 food safety inspectors — far fewer than the agency needed to inspect every food processing facility at the pace Congress mandated. The agency estimated that it would need about 1,500 more workers to inspect 36,600 food facilities, foreign and domestic, once every five years or once every three years for high-risk producers.
At this time, those inspectors are largely exempted from losing their jobs.
However, one team of outbreak investigators is vulnerable, according to Jim Jones, the agency’s food division chief in the latter part of the Biden administration. This team, known as CORE, coordinates with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to link a cluster of sick people to a specific food plant or farmer’s field. The team tracks inspections and efforts to ensure that tainted food is removed from store shelves.
Mr. Jones said the team was recently built up as a fully remote operation that would most likely be affected when orders to return to work at federal offices were put in place this month. Workers who live more than 50 miles from an F.D.A. office have until late April to begin working at a federal site.
“So their choices will be you either move so that you can go to a federal facility, or you leave,” Mr. Jones said. “There’s nothing strategic about who gets caught in that pickle.”
Across the F.D.A., inspections plummeted during the pandemic and have not returned to the higher levels before 2020. At the same time, the amount of imported food has risen, including clams that have repeatedly found to be contaminated with PFAS.
Cutbacks to States
Once the F.D.A. identifies a factory that was the source of contamination, it often relies on state inspectors to investigate on site. In criticizing the reductions, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, pointed out that state inspectors performed about half of the inspections at food processing facilities, 90 percent of the produce safety inspections and all of the retail store visits.
The F.D.A. also turns to state and local public health officials to pluck potentially tainted foods from grocery store shelves and test them at a network of 55 public health labs throughout the United States. If a product is recalled, the state officials also audit grocery stores to be sure the food has been removed.
A move late in the Biden era sharply limited the funding that the F.D.A. sends to states and to the labs that do critical work. The latest $34 million funding reduction applies to states and to those public health labs. The agency said in a letter to Mr. Blumenthal that the cuts were being made because the food division had a flat budget and costs were increasing because of inflation.
Thom Petersen, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, said F.D.A. food safety funding had fallen steadily since 2019, with the latest cut striking deeper and possibly leading to layoffs. He said the funding loss could slow the important work of taking bad food out of stores.
That work proved particularly important after officials discovered extremely high levels of lead in cinnamon in applesauce pouch snacks for children. The F.D.A. ended up sending a warning letter to Dollar Tree over its failure to quickly pull the pouches.
“Timing is the important piece,” Mr. Petersen said. “We want to take care of those and work on that.“
The public health labs reported that the money amounted to about 30 percent of their funding, which helps them respond to outbreaks more quickly than the F.D.A.
In the Boar’s Head listeria outbreak, for instance, lab officials in Maryland and New York bought liverwurst at stores that tested positive for the same strain that sickened people. A trade group for the labs predicted that the budget cuts could delay responses — and lead to more people getting sick.
Health
Single infusion of controversial drug changed severe depression symptoms within hours, study finds
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People experiencing severe depression with suicidal symptoms may not have to wait weeks for traditional antidepressants to take effect.
A recent review suggests that a single intravenous ketamine infusion can provide rapid relief for some patients.
Originally developed as an anesthetic, ketamine is a medicine that can reduce pain and, in some cases, help treat depression, but it can also be misused as a recreational drug, experts warn.
SINGLE DOSE OF POWERFUL PSYCHEDELIC CUTS DEPRESSION SYMPTOMS IN CLINICAL STUDY
Researchers from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine reviewed 26 clinical trials that included more than 1,100 patients. Approximately 626 received ketamine and 540 served as controls who did not take the drug.
Most of the trials included patients with major depressive disorder, but 11.5% included those with bipolar depression and 7.7% included people with both unipolar and bipolar depressive diagnoses.
A recent review suggests that a single intravenous ketamine infusion can provide rapid relief for some patients with treatment-resistant depression. (iStock)
Compared to a placebo, a single treatment significantly reduced depression in just four hours and dramatically lowered suicidal thoughts within 24 hours, the study found.
Patients reported fewer depressive symptoms after a week and reduced suicidal thoughts for up to a month after one ketamine infusion. Those who received repeated ketamine infusions showed a similar reduction of suicidal and depressive symptoms at the end of the treatment.
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The most common adverse effects of ketamine – including headaches, numbness, dissociation (“out of body” experiences), nausea, dizziness and visual disturbances – were temporary and resolved within hours of the infusion.
Rarer, more serious side events included hospitalization, suicide attempts and suicide, but most were unrelated to ketamine, the review stated.
The analysis was published in May in JAMA Psychiatry.
Treatment-resistant depression
Major depressive disorder is a formal psychiatric diagnosis affecting approximately 280 million people globally, according to recent research.
Effective treatment involves a combination of therapy and medication, frequently antidepressants. However, for a few patients, symptoms do not respond to multiple therapies, a condition known as treatment-resistant depression, doctors say.
“When all existing treatment options fail, patients with severe depression could consider ketamine infusions.”
These patients are at a higher risk of very serious, sometimes tragic consequences, including suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and death.
“When all existing treatment options fail, patients with severe depression could consider ketamine infusions,” lead author Taeho Greg Rhee, PhD, of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, told Fox News Digital. “This is still a safer option when compared to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).”
Compared to a placebo, a single treatment significantly reduced depression in just four hours and dramatically lowered suicidal thoughts within 24 hours, the study found. (iStock)
Traditional antidepressants stabilize mood by slowly elevating serotonin levels in the brain, but it can take weeks for the full effect to be achieved.
Ketamine, in contrast, works rapidly by blocking glutamate, a neurotransmitter that can impact emotions negatively when levels are too high in the brain, according to Cleveland Clinic.
Implications for care
The authors say their findings have two important potential clinical applications.
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First, ketamine’s rapid effects can be a life-saving treatment in the emergency room for patients presenting with suicidal ideation.
Experts caution that the medication should only be administered in closely monitored settings, such as clinics, to ensure safe treatment. (iStock)
Second, the effects of a single ketamine infusion are relatively short-lived – as almost all patients relapsed with depressive symptoms after a single infusion – so those with treatment-resistant depression will need repeated sessions.
“While intravenous ketamine is not yet FDA-approved for treating depression, it may still be used with off-label indications for those with severe depression and/or with a high risk of suicidal behaviors,” said Rhee.
Experts urge caution despite promise
Dr. Lama Bazzi, a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City, has had several patients receive ketamine infusions.
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“For a small subset of patients in a major depressive episode or struggling with suicidal thoughts, intravenous ketamine can be genuinely lifesaving,” Bazzi, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. “The relief they experience is almost immediate, offering them distance from the intensity of their emotions.”
However, she cautions that the medication should only be administered in closely monitored settings, such as clinics, to ensure safe treatment.
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Ketamine is not a panacea, Rhee agreed, warning of the potential risk of abuse and addiction.
“It should only be used medically,” he advised.
Ketamine’s rapid effects can be a life-saving treatment in the emergency room for patients presenting with suicidal ideation, some experts claim. (Getty Images)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, noted in previous comments to Fox News Digital that ketamine is increasingly being used to treat severe depression, but emphasized that it should be administered under careful medical supervision because of its potential risks.
Study limitations
Although the studies compared ketamine with a placebo, some patients may have realized they were receiving the drug. This could have influenced how they reported their symptoms and how effective they perceived the treatment to be, according to the researchers.
“It should only be used medically.”
Another limitation is the small sample size of the studies, which could make the effects seem disproportionately magnified.
Also, as this was a review of many different studies, it is challenging to apply the findings to the general population, the researchers noted.
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“While long-term outcomes have not been studied, I believe that when patients are severely depressed or suicidal, ketamine is sometimes the only choice that almost always works,” Bazzi added.
Anyone interested in exploring alternative depression treatments should first consult a doctor.
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Tick bite-related ER visits are at their highest seasonal levels since 2017 across most U.S. regions, raising concerns about increased Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.
That’s according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Tick Bite Tracker, which monitors weekly emergency department visits associated with tick bites across the country.
For every 100,000 ER visits, approximately 71 were related to tick bites in April 2026, compared to a historical seasonal average of roughly 30 per 100,000.
DOCTORS REVEAL KEY SIGNS OF LYME DISEASE AS TICK SEASON INTENSIFIES ACROSS US
Some of the highest rates of tick-based ER visits were among children younger than 10 years and adults between 70 and 79 years.
A close-up shows a parasitic mite in motion on a human fingertip, highlighting the potential for disease transmission such as encephalitis. (iStock)
“Over the past three decades, the geographic range of the blacklegged tick has expanded significantly, and with it, the risk of Lyme disease and other Ixodes-transmitted infections,” Dr. Steven Goldberg, a family medicine physician who practices urgent care and family medicine at UofLHealth in Louisville, Kentucky, told Fox News Digital.
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“The Ohio River Valley region is one of the most striking examples — Lyme disease cases in Ohio have increased roughly 10-fold over the past decade, likely driven by the convergence of Northeastern and Upper Midwestern tick populations meeting in that corridor.”
States like Virginia and West Virginia, as well as areas south of the traditional endemic zone, are reporting increasing tick abundance and disease cases, the doctor noted.
“Over the past three decades, the geographic range of the blacklegged tick has expanded significantly.”
“The lone star tick is also expanding its range northward beyond its traditional stronghold in the Southeast, which means diseases like ehrlichiosis and alpha-gal syndrome are appearing in regions where clinicians may not yet be thinking about them,” he warned.
Some climate studies predict that the blacklegged tick’s suitable habitat could expand by over 200% by the end of the century, Goldberg noted, including into Canada and across the central and southern U.S.
What’s driving the spike?
“Warmer, wetter conditions allow ticks to survive in habitats that previously would have been too cold,” said Dr. Suraj Saggar, chief of infectious disease at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey. “Milder winters also extend the lifespan of both ticks and the animals they feed on, accelerating tick reproduction and shortening their life cycles.”
Areas that historically experienced longer, colder winters or significant snow cover are now more hospitable to ticks, the doctor noted.
COPPERHEAD SNAKE BITE LEAVES MAYOR’S WIFE IN ‘EXCRUCIATING PAIN,’ HE REVEALS
“As temperatures rise and precipitation patterns change, ticks are able to spread northward and thrive in new ecosystems,” he said.
Another contributing factor is increased land development and human expansion into wooded and grassy areas, as well as reforestation of formerly agricultural land.
“As temperatures rise and precipitation patterns change, ticks are able to spread northward and thrive in new ecosystems,” an expert said. (iStock)
“The recovery and expansion of white-tailed deer populations — critical hosts for adult blacklegged ticks — has been a major driver,” Goldberg added. “Deer density is positively associated with Lyme disease incidence. Small mammal communities, particularly white-footed mice that serve as key reservoir hosts for Borrelia burgdorferi, also play a central role.”
Tick-borne diseases
Tick bites are known to transmit numerous illnesses, the most widespread of which is Lyme disease, a bacterial infection.
“Lyme disease cases alone have increased roughly two- to threefold over the past 20 years,” Saggar said. Approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year, per CDC surveillance data.
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Also common are anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis, two different types of bacterial infections, according to the doctor. Tick bites can also cause babesiosis, a malaria-like parasitic disease that infects and destroys red blood cells.
“Another growing concern is alpha-gal syndrome, a condition in which a (lone star) tick bite triggers a serious allergic reaction to red meat,” Saggar said. “In rare cases, people have died from anaphylactic reactions linked to alpha-gal syndrome following a tick bite.”
Some common symptoms of tick-borne illness include fever, chills, fatigue, headaches, muscle aches and joint pain. (iStock)
Ticks can also transmit viruses, including the Powassan virus, which can cause severe neurologic injury.
“Powassan virus disease is arguably the most concerning emerging tick-borne infection,” said Goldberg, who is also chief medical officer at HealthTrack. “It’s transmitted by the same blacklegged tick that carries Lyme disease, but unlike Lyme, it can be transmitted within minutes of tick attachment.”
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Powassan can cause severe encephalitis with a roughly 10% to 15% fatality rate, and more than half of survivors have lasting neurological deficits, Goldberg noted.
In the Rocky Mountain states, the Rocky Mountain wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni) transmits Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Colorado tick fever.
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“In the Southeast and South-Central U.S., the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum) drives a different set of concerns: ehrlichiosis, tularemia, and two emerging viral threats — Heartland virus and Bourbon virus,” said Goldberg.
Symptoms to watch for
Some common symptoms of tick-borne illness include fever, chills, fatigue, headaches, muscle aches and joint pain, according to Saggar.
Another sign is the classic “bull’s-eye” rash associated with Lyme disease, known medically as “erythema migrans.”
“If you think you have been bitten by a tick, you should seek medical attention if you develop symptoms after a known tick bite or after spending time in tick-prone areas, especially during the spring, summer and fall.” (iStock)
“Because testing can sometimes be falsely negative early in the disease process, doctors may treat patients based on symptoms and exposure history rather than waiting for laboratory confirmation,” Saggar noted.
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“If you think you have been bitten by a tick, you should seek medical attention if you develop symptoms after a known tick bite or after spending time in tick-prone areas, especially during the spring, summer and fall.”
Preventing tick bites
As there are no vaccines currently available for any tick-borne disease in the U.S., prevention is the most effective strategy.
Goldberg shared the following recommended prevention strategies.
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- Use EPA-approved repellents, including DEET, picaridin, IR3535 or oil of lemon eucalyptus on exposed skin. Treat clothing and gear with permethrin (a synthetic insecticide and repellent) or purchase pre-treated clothing.
- Wear light-colored clothing (to spot ticks more easily), long sleeves and long pants tucked into socks when in wooded or grassy areas.
- After spending time outdoors, check your entire body, paying special attention to the scalp, behind the ears, armpits, groin and behind the knees, the doctor advised. It’s also recommended to shower within two hours of coming indoors.
- Tumble-dry clothing on high heat for at least 10 minutes to kill any ticks on clothing.
- Remove ticks promptly and properly. Using fine-tipped tweezers, grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible, and pull upward with steady, even pressure. Clean the bite area afterward.
Approximately 476,000 Americans are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year, per CDC data.
“The longer a tick is attached, the higher the risk of disease transmission — for Lyme disease, transmission generally requires at least 36 hours of attachment,” Goldberg said. “The Powassan virus can be transmitted much more quickly.”
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