In an E. coli outbreak that killed one person and sickened nearly 90 people in 15 states late last year, most people didn’t know about it.
The outbreak was linked to a farm that grew romaine lettuce following an investigation by state and federal agencies.
In an internal Food and Drug Administration memo dated Feb. 11, 2025, the agency said there were no public communications related to the outbreak, and the farm wasn’t named during the outbreak because there was no product remaining in commerce.
This doesn’t follow usual procedures. The FDA usually alerts the public and identifies growers and food manufacturers when an outbreak occurs.
The illnesses were investigated near the end of the Biden Administration, but the results of the lettuce outbreak wasn’t completed until Feb. 11.
It was the Trump administration that decided not to release the name of the grower and processor.
With failing to announce a major food outbreak and firing food safety staff under the guise of cutting costs, the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory policies are harming the public.
The Trump administration has also disbanded a Justice Department unit that takes civil and criminal actions against companies that sell contaminated food.
In addition, food safety staff for the U.S. Department of Agriculture also have been cut.
The budget cuts and layoffs are intended to lessen federal government oversight and to shift many of the responsibilities to the state level. However, some states don’t have the resources to serve as equally effective replacements, Marion Nestle, professor emerita from New York University, said in an article on her blog Food Politics.
“Our federal food safety system is teetering on the brink of a collapse,” Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs for the Center for Science in the Public interest, said in a National Public Radio article. “It’s as if you took a chainsaw and started cutting holes out of the walls of a house. You can’t really point to the fact that the doors or windows are still there and say, ‘Don't worry, the house is secure.’”
