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PORTSIDE CULTURE

FDA MAKING PLANS TO END ITS ROUTINE FOOD SAFETY INSPECTIONS, SOURCES
SAY  
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Alexander Tin, Edited By Nicole Brown Chau, Paula Cohen
April 18, 2025
CBS [[link removed]]


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_ Thomas Gremillion, Consumer Federation of America, criticized the
Administration's reckless disregard for its policies' effects on the
detection and prevention of foodborne illness and said plans to
replace federal food inspectors merit suspicion _

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The Food and Drug Administration
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drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety
inspections work, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News, and
effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities.

The plans have not been finalized and might need congressional action
to fully fund, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak
publicly. 

"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," an FDA spokesperson said
in a statement.

Some FDA employees have been working on a possible shift of the
agency's routine food efforts to states for years, one current and one
former official said, which could free up resources to focus on higher
priority and foreign inspections. The FDA already outsources some
routine food inspections through contracts with 43 states
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Puerto Rico. 

"There's so much work to go around. And us duplicating their work just
doesn't make sense," one former FDA official, who worked on the plans
before leaving the agency and spoke on the condition of anonymity,
told CBS News.

Multiple federal health officials said that the state work currently
is often reserved for lower-risk inspections. A third of routine food
safety inspections were done by states over recent years, a Government
Accountability Office report
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year. 

The FDA is ultimately responsible for the safety of much of the U.S.
food supply that's distributed over state lines, like packaged
products, seafood, eggs and produce. Some kinds of meat
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regulated by a different agency inside the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. 

Some higher-risk routine food inspections would likely remain at the
FDA under the plans, two officials said. For example, agency staff
currently conduct annual visits to infant formula manufacturers, which
are overseen separately as "critical foods" inspections. States would
also not be able to take on the work of routine inspections in foreign
food facilities. 

It is unclear what would happen for the states that do not have
contracts with the FDA to conduct food inspections, which range from
Hawaii to Delaware. 

In addition to routine inspections, the FDA also does other kinds of
inspections in response to issues, like a visit to a Colorado onion
processor last year
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to the McDonald's Quarter Pounders outbreak that turned up dozens of
violations. 

Internal planning around the possibility of outsourcing its routine
inspections first picked up after 2010, the former FDA official said,
when the agency was working on implementing major food safety
legislation passed that year.

The official likened the plans to the FDA's Grade A Milk Safety
Program
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where states fund the majority of oversight work themselves and have
agreements with the agency to standardize how the industry is
regulated.  

Some states and advocacy groups have called for years for the FDA to
move its routine food inspections out to states. States can often do
inspections at a lower cost than the FDA, while meeting the same
standards, they have argued
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"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," said Steve Mandernach, executive
director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials, in a
statement.

Mandernach drew a parallel to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, under which hospitals and nursing homes are largely
inspected by state agencies but overseen by the federal government. 

He also pointed to how the FDA regulates produce farms
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with most states to pay for routine inspections conducted by local
agriculture departments, where they often handle inspections and
enforcement themselves.

"Further, we implemented this type of program with produce already and
it has been successful, expanding and leveraging those lessons can
only provide greater value to the taxpayers, increase oversight of
manufacturers, and improve food safety," he said.

Ending the FDA's work to do its own routine food safety inspections
might also help alleviate an issue elsewhere at the agency: a backlog
of inspections overseas, as well as in other markets like medical
products. 

In the past, FDA inspectors had been trained to do multiple kinds of
inspections, officials said, instead of specializing only in food
safety inspections.

Steep layoffs at the office's support staff is expected to result in
cutbacks
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the number of inspections that can be done by the agency, CBS News
previously reported. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has also
greenlighted
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to hire contractors to attempt to plug the hole left by the laid-off
workers.

"In theory, relying on states to do more routine food inspection work
could lead to better food safety," said Thomas Gremillion, director of
food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, in an email to CBS
News. 

Gremillion cautioned that a transition in how food inspections are
done by the FDA would take significant time and resources. 

"So far, this Administration has acted with reckless disregard for how
its policies will affect the detection and prevention of foodborne
illness, and any plans to replace federal food inspectors with some
other workforce deserves suspicion," he said.

ALEXANDER TIN [[link removed]]

Alexander Tin is a digital reporter for CBS News based in the
Washington, D.C. bureau. He covers federal public health agencies.

* Food Safety
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* FDA
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* Consumer Federation of America
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