Over the past several months, the federal government has made extensive cuts to instrumental food health and safety organizations like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Center for Disease Control.
And now, Gallup polling released this week says American confidence in the government to ensure food safety is at a new low. Shocker.
Only 53% of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in food safety. This number has been dropping since 2006, however, there was a sharp decline starting in 2019.
Despite this, 84% of Americans still report that their diet is at least “somewhat healthy,” a number that has stayed consistent since Gallup started this reporting in 2001, but there hasn’t been much — if any — increase in how many people are paying attention to nutrition labels and food warnings. Something that has become increasingly necessary as new food recalls are being announced almost daily.
The USDA and FDA release public notices when they become aware of a recall, however, some of these notices aren’t released until weeks or months after a contamination was reported. These recalls aren’t always the easiest to find, sometimes they’re hiding in the FDA Enforcement Report, which is completely different from the Recall, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts Data Base.
For example, in this week’s enforcement report there are six ongoing recalls from the same company (King Cheesecake Company Inc.) because various products included pecans that were potentially contaminated with salmonella. This is listed as a Class I recall, the most serious from the FDA. The recall was initiated on July 18, but not classified by the FDA until August 7. To make matters worse, there is no listed press release for the recall even though it affects products and consumers in six different states including Alabama, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Illinois.
Despite the cuts, officials have maintained that the number of inspectors and other food regulators will not change. Other experts are saying these cuts are a massive threat to public health and safety and could lead to dangerous disease outbreaks and consistent food recalls.
Who’s to say which is true, but it’s clear the majority of Americans aren’t confident in our food systems right now. All in the name of making America healthy again — apparently.
