By Molly Goddard
3:24am PDT, Apr 19, 2025
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The Food and Drug Administration may be gearing up for some major changes.
According to
CBS News, the
government agency is thinking of ending its routine safety inspection work after it allegedly covered up an E. coli outbreak in 15 states across America that killed one person.
Keep reading to hear what may be happening behind the scenes of the organization…
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According to multiple federal health officials, the Food and Drug Administration is looking to outsource the inspection work to state and local authorities. "There's so much work to go around. And us duplicating their work just doesn't make sense," one anonymous worker of the agency told CBS News.
However, Executive Director of the Association of
Food and Drug Officials
Steve Mandernach staunchly defended moving the routine checks over to the states. "FDA audits have determined states inspections to be high quality, and the costs show them to be a good economic value. There is significant cost to managing two systems also," he claimed in a statement.
While no plans have been finalized, an FDA spokesperson issued a statement on the matter: "The claim that the FDA is suspending routine food safety inspections is false. FDA is actively working to ensure continuity of operations during the reorganization period and remains committed to ensuring critical programs and inspections continue," they clarified.
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Potential changes with the Food and Drug Administration come as an E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce affected people in 15 states in November 2024.
According to
NBC News, a 9-year-old Indiana boy died of kidney failure linked to the bacteria and a 57-year-old Missouri woman also became sick from exposure.
Per an internal report obtained by the outlet, there was a sealed FDA investigation into the matter where the liable businesses were not named. "There were no public communications related to this outbreak," the document stated.
A representative for the agency defended the matter, claiming, "The FDA names firms when there is enough evidence linking an outbreak to a firm and there is actionable advice for consumers, as long as naming the firm is not legally prohibited. By the time investigators had confirmed the likely source, the outbreak had already ended and there was no actionable advice for consumers."
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The alleged outbreak cover-up comes as Secretary of Health and Human Services
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. along with
Donald Trump's administration have made sweeping cuts to the federal government agency.
"We no longer have all the mechanisms in place to learn from those situations and prevent the next outbreak from happening," the FDA's Former Public Engagement Leader
Taryn Webb — who lost her job earlier this month — said, according to
NBC News.
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During a Friday, April 11, address to the remaining employees at the Food and Drug Administration, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly accused the entity of being a "a sock puppet" for the industries it regulates.
According to a recording of the meeting obtained by
NBC News, the member of Donald Trump's administration went on a rant about how the "deep state is real."
"President Trump always talks about the deep state and the media disparages him and says that he is paranoid or a conspiracy theorist," Kennedy said to the staffers. "But the deep state is real and it's not
George Soros or
Bill Gates and a bunch of nefarious individuals sitting together in a room and plotting the destruction of humanity. It's more insidious than that. It's institutional pressures."
