No more food safety inspections in US? FDA's new plan unveiled amid massive staff cuts

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)has been making a plan to end most of its routine food safety inspections work amid major staff cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), multiple federal health officials told CBS News.

The proficiency testing program of the FDA’s Food Emergency Response Network was made to ensure consistency and accuracy across the agency's network of about 170 labs that test food for pathogens.

This comes after 20,000 HHS employees got fired or some departed, leading to disruption in the agency's work on areas including bird flu and drug reviews.

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Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has been hoping to slash as much as $40 billion from HHS.

“Unfortunately, significant reductions in force, including a key quality assurance officer, an analytical chemist, and two microbiologists at FDA’s Human Food Program Moffett Center have an immediate and significant impact on the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) Proficiency Testing (PT) Program,” said the email sent on Tuesday from FERN’s National Program Office and seen by Reuters.

The program will be suspended at least from September 30. It further means that the agency will be unable to do planned quality-check on food for the parasite cyclospora in spinach or the pesticide glyphosate in barley, among other tests, the email read.

“These PTs and Exercises are critical to demonstrating the competency and readiness of our laboratory network to detect and respond to food safety and food defense events,” it added.

According to CBS report, the FDA plans may need congressional action to fully fund, adding that some higher-risk routine food inspections would probably remain at the FDA.

Notably, in April, the FDA suspended an effort to improve its testing for bird flu in milk, cheese and pet food due to staff shortage.