There has been a barrage of bad news about food lately. Ten people died after eating Boar’s Head deli meat in a listeria outbreak that hospitalized dozens of others. One person has died and more than 100 people have been sickened in an E. coli outbreak linked to onions served on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders. This month, there has been a food recall nearly every day.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the federal health department, has repeatedly called the U.S. food system “broken.” And the public seems to agree with that sentiment: A September poll showed that confidence in federal regulators’ ability to ensure that the food supply was safe was at a record low.
But a closer examination of data on foodborne illnesses and food recalls shows a more complicated picture. Experts say that by some measures, the food supply has become safer in recent years: We now have better testing systems that make it possible to detect contaminated food sooner and recall it faster, which means that outbreaks are now often smaller. It’s also easier to detect foodborne illnesses and link them to specific outbreaks. Still, there has been less progress than experts had hoped to see by now.
“I won’t say the food supply is getting less safe, but it’s not getting safer either,” said Donald Schaffner, a professor of food science at Rutgers University. “We’ve sort of stalled out.”
Experts say that the lack of progress is due, at least in part, to a patchwork regulatory system that has struggled to keep pace with an increasingly complex food supply. More products and ingredients are now being imported, and food is more frequently grown, manufactured, packed and distributed by separate companies. A longer and less integrated supply chain means there are many more points at which the food can be contaminated.
Consumer habits have also changed, with more people relying on ready-to-eat foods like deli meats and bagged salads that they don’t wash or cook themselves.
“We do have more consumer awareness, more testing, more ways of finding these bugs,” said Darin Detwiler, a professor of food regulatory affairs at Northeastern University. “But there’s just so much change in consumer behavior and in the growth of convenience foods that at some point, we’re going to see that we’re losing the battle.”
The Prevalence of Foodborne Illness
In 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded about 5,600 foodborne illnesses, compared with about 13,800 in 2009. That’s just a fraction of what’s estimated to be the true burden of illness each year: The C.D.C. estimates that the number of people who become sick with foodborne illness every year is close to 48 million, and that there are about 3,000 deaths annually from these infections.
In 2020, the federal government set a goal to reduce infections from some of the deadliest pathogens by 2030. But a C.D.C. report from September found that the rate of illness from listeria, salmonella and E. coli had not improved. And the rate of illness from other pathogens had risen.
“We’re just not making the progress we had hoped,” said Dr. Jennifer Cope, a medical epidemiologist and the chief of enteric diseases at the C.D.C.
Recalls have nearly doubled between 2012 and 2024, though the Food and Drug Administration lumps food and cosmetic recalls together. Some of this increase may be because of better testing. Not all recalls involve pathogens, either: Since 2011, about 40 percent of recalls have been related to allergens, according to Janell Goodwin, an F.D.A. spokeswoman.
Advances in whole-genome sequencing in the last decade have given public health investigators much better tools to quickly detect pathogens in fresh produce and other foods, and to trace them to specific restaurants, grocery stores and other food suppliers. This has allowed the F.D.A. to issue recall notices before any illnesses have been reported. And food companies are also alerting consumers more quickly, experts say, instead of risking the bad publicity associated with an outbreak.
“It’s an indication that our food safety system is working, detecting events before anyone gets sick,” said Craig Hedberg, an epidemiologist and food safety expert at the University of Minnesota.
Greater Risks to Fresh Produce
Most oversight of the food supply falls to the F.D.A., with the exception of meat, poultry and some egg products, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Beef, pork and poultry are now involved in fewer large outbreaks and recalls than they were decades ago, experts said. The industry changed its practices after a 1993 E. coli outbreak linked to undercooked hamburgers served at Jack in the Box restaurants sickened more than 600 people and killed four children.
“It was a watershed moment that forced the food safety world to look at how beef, pork and poultry were regulated,” said Benjamin Chapman, a professor and food safety specialist at North Carolina State University.
Historically, fruits and vegetables were not viewed as posing the same risk as meat, but recent data show that fresh produce is a leading cause of foodborne illness. Fruits and vegetables can be contaminated by pathogens that occur naturally in soil, or by water used for irrigation, which can be tainted with the feces of animals in nearby farms. Produce can also be contaminated in processing centers by workers or unclean surfaces or equipment, or in distribution trucks. These germs can linger on fresh produce even after it has been carefully washed.
The Food Safety Modernization Act, signed by former President Barack Obama in 2011, was meant to reduce contamination in produce-growing areas, but its reach is limited: F.D.A. inspectors are hampered by a law that prohibits them from taking test samples from neighboring animal farms without the landowners’ permission.
The Risks of a More Complex Food Supply
Food suppliers are increasingly sourcing fresh produce, seafood and other fare from overseas, posing a challenge for regulators. These changes to how food is made and consumed have made the food supply chain more difficult to track, said Mr. Detwiler, the Northeastern professor, who became a food safety advocate after his 16-month-old son died in the Jack in the Box outbreak.
The F.D.A. does not have the resources to inspect many foreign facilities, said Susan Mayne, who served as the agency’s director of food safety during the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. The F.D.A. physically inspects less than 1 percent of food imports.
That gap in oversight was illuminated last year, when applesauce pouches that contained lead-tainted cinnamon sourced from Ecuador sickened hundreds of children across the United States. The F.D.A. had not inspected the plant in Ecuador or sampled the product when it entered the United States.
Inspections could also be hampered by proposed cuts in federal funding to state food safety programs, said Sarah Sorscher, the director of regulatory affairs at the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. States often carry out on-site inspections of restaurants, food processing facilities and farms on the F.D.A.’s behalf.
Federal inspectors have also come under scrutiny for failing to act quickly after possible contamination issues were identified. In February 2021, a whistle-blower complaint alerted the F.D.A. to unsafe conditions at a baby formula manufacturing plant in Michigan. It took nearly a year for the agency to conduct an inspection. Bacteria was found in the plant, and a recall was issued. By then, one infant had died from an infection of Cronobacter bacteria traced to the formula. Another infant later died, and two others were sickened.
The U.S.D.A. was also criticized for not acting more swiftly after inspectors repeatedly found black mold, rust and other issues at a Boar’s Head processing plant in Virginia starting in September 2022. A recall was issued only after this summer’s deadly outbreak.
Mr. Kennedy has vowed to slash entire departments at the F.D.A., saying that big agricultural producers “control” the agency. But reducing staffing will only hinder the work of federal inspectors, Dr. Mayne said. She added that Mr. Kennedy’s “narrative that F.D.A. experts are somehow captured by industry is simply not true.”
And regulators can only do so much, Dr. Mayne said.
“F.D.A. functions as a food safety cop on the beat,” she said. “But the ultimate responsibility for making things safer really comes from the food industry.”
The post What’s Going on With All of These Food Recalls? appeared first on New York Times.
