ICYMI: Trump’s Cuts to the Food Safety System Threaten Americans’ Health Arrow

New reporting underscores growing concerns from experts as the Trump administration dismantles the public health system's ability to track and prevent food-borne illnesses, especially as deep funding cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ripple across states.

In response, DNC Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer released the following statement:

"Donald Trump is putting Americans' health on the line. By recklessly dismantling the system that tracks food-borne illnesses, he's making it harder to stop outbreaks before they spread. This isn't about 'Making America Healthy Again' - it's about slashing federal funding to finance tax cuts for his billionaire backers. With RFK Jr. at the helm of HHS, research and evidence are being thrown out the window - and the health of families are being put at risk."

Key points from the New York Times reporting:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly and drastically scaled back the country's most comprehensive system for tracking the food-borne illnesses estimated to sicken millions of Americans each year.
• Public health experts consider the program, called the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (or FoodNet), to be one of the most critical ways to protect against the dangerous pathogens, such as listeria and vibrio, that cause food-borne illnesses.
• For years, it tracked eight of them. As of this summer, it will only track two.
• Public health experts said they worried that scaling back FoodNet could present long-term health risks.
• "We're really gutting one of the cornerstones of food safety," said Elaine Scallan Walter, a professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health and one of the lead scientists for the FoodNet program in Colorado.
• The cuts come as Americans are losing confidence in the safety of the U.S. food supply.
• Most state and local public health programs are funded by the C.D.C., which is facing a proposed budget reduction of $3.5 billion next year.
• "The public health system is getting dismantled," Dr. Morris said. "Food-borne disease is one component of that."