Decision to axe advisory groups could spell trouble for US food safety

A Trump administration move to axe key food safety advisory committees could leave the public more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses, critics fear, particularly alongside current legislative efforts to undermine proposed safety regulations on food processors.

The decision to cut the committees, which brought together academics, industry researchers and consumer advocates to advise agencies on food safety, comes after hospitalizations and deaths from foodborne illnesses more than doubled last year, with most illnesses attributed to the same harmful pathogens that the groups were working to address. And it comes less than a month after Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would block the implementation of a proposed new regulatory framework for reducing Salmonella contamination in raw poultry that was introduced under former President Joe Biden.

“It doesn’t appear that this administration at the highest level seems to care about food safety,” said Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist for the group Consumer Reports who was serving on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF).

Loss of expert input

The USDA announced March 6 that it was terminating NACMCF, which provided scientific advice and recommendations to the USDA, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a broad range of issues related to pathogens and public health. The USDA said all work should stop immediately, citing President Donald Trump’s Feb. 19 executive order to pare down the federal bureaucracy.

The agency also terminated the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI), which advised the USDA on the safety of meat and poultry inspection programs.

Elaine Scallan Walter, the co-director of the Colorado Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence at the Colorado School of Public Health who has not served on either committee, said she was “dismayed” by the decision to eliminate them.

“Threats to food safety evolve constantly,” said Walter. “There is a need for cutting-edge research that develops new strategies to keep Americans safe. NACMCF and NACMPI currently support USDA in finding ways to address pressing new food safety threats based on evidence. Defunding centers of excellence and collaboration puts us all at risk.”

The decision to eliminate the committees “significantly reduces opportunities for expert engagement with the USDA,” said Bryan Hitchcock, Chief Science and Technology Officer at the Institute for Food Technologists, an international nonprofit society for food professionals that includes members from industry, academia and government. “This loss of expert input can create gaps in the thoroughness and rigor of our food safety protocols and reduces public engagement and transparency in the process.

A USDA spokesperson said that terminating the committees is part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate inefficiencies, and “strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people.”

The agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) “continues to deliver its mission to keep the supply of meat, poultry and egg products safe, wholesome and properly labeled for consumers,” the USDA spokesperson said.

“It wasn’t frivolous”

At the time of its elimination, members of NACMCF, which was established in 1988, were researching how modern genomic techniques can more accurately predict and control leading foodborne pathogens including E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella, which caused most foodborne illnesses in 2024, according to a recent report by the US PIRG Education Fund.

Last year, the advisory group published a report in the Journal of Food Protection with criteria the USDA could use to prevent Salmonella infections from poultry products.

NACMCF was also preparing to release a report with recommendations on the bacteria cronobacter after an outbreak in powdered infant formula from September 2021 to February 2022 that panicked parents, said Randy Worobo, a then-current NACMCF member and professor of food science at Cornell University who said he was nominated to serve on the committee by a person in the poultry industry. The report is now “dead in the water,” he said.

“It wasn’t frivolous, it was very directed and relevant topics that we worked on,” said Worobo. “Personally, I think the committee actually streamlined bureaucracy.”

Linda Harris, a recently retired distinguished professor of microbial food safety from the University of California, Davis, said she considers her work on NACMCF to be some of the most consequential of her 34-year career. Harris previously served two terms on NACMCF, including one that in 2007 published recommendations for safely cooking poultry.

“I believe the outputs from these committees over the years have led to better regulations and guidance documents than would have been possible from only internal committees – a win for the food industry, regulators, and consumer,” said Harris, adding that they are a huge return on investment for the government and taxpayers.

There are other federal committees that work on food safety issues, including the FDA’s Science Board, which does not focus solely on food safety, and the CDC’s Food Safety Modernization Act Surveillance Working Group, which works on foodborne disease surveillance.

However, “there are no other committees like NACMCF” that jointly advised multiple agencies on food safety issues, said Barbara Kowalcyk, Director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University who previously served on NACMCF and other advisory committees.

Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at the Consumer Federation of America, served on NACMPI during the first Trump administration. The committee made recommendations on E. coli testing, labeling frozen raw chicken products, and managing Listeria risk, he said.

NACMPI, established in 1971, also included committee members from across sectors – large and small meat processors, academia, state regulators and extension agencies, and public health agencies, providing a forum to establish common ground in “controversial policy debates,” said Gremillion.

Scientists from many large food corporations and industry groups have served on both committees, including, most recently, Cargill Protein, the North American Meat Institute, Butterball, Smithfield Foods, Newman’s Own and the American Foods Group.

Food safety’s future

While cutting the committees may not lead to immediate food safety problems, it could result in “unanticipated consequences in the future,” said Craig Hedberg, co-director of the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence at the University of Minnesota, who did not serve on the committees.

“My great concern with the directions the current administration is taking with respect to these and other advisory bodies, is the sense that the administration wants to have the ability to make decisions without critical review by external experts,” said Hedberg. “This is, no doubt, more efficient…however, it will likely lead to adopting policies that are not fully thought out.”

Without NACMCF and NACMPI providing outside scientific input, food safety may be left up to federal agencies that are responsible for overseeing particular foods, said Worobo. “They’re going to be solely responsible for making decisions and recommendations without any kind of third-party input, especially from industry. I think there’s going to be perhaps a lapse of a better understanding of what the industry’s doing and what the industry should do.”

Beyond the loss of these food safety advisory committees, Worobo is concerned that CDC staffing cuts under the Trump administration will impact surveillance programs important to human health and food safety.

“You can have nutritious food, but if it’s not safe then it can’t be considered food,” he said.

(Featured image by JK Sloan on Unsplash.)