Lettuce Outbreak Exposes 35% Drop in FDA Inspections
Lettuce Outbreak Exposes 35% Drop in FDA Inspections
The News
A nationwide cyclospora outbreak tied to contaminated iceberg lettuce has put a spotlight on how rarely U.S. regulators now check the foreign farms that feed Americans.
FDA inspections of foreign food sites — including the Mexican farm linked to the outbreak — are down nearly 35% since 2019, according to agency records reviewed by the Associated Press.
Former senior FDA officials told the AP that staffing cuts, reorganizations and other upheavals under President Donald Trump could push the number lower still.
The Numbers
Foreign food inspections fell 17% last year, to 1,140 in fiscal year 2025. The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 directs the FDA to inspect more than 19,000 international food sites a year. The agency's all-time high was 1,700 in 2019 — less than one-tenth of the target, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The FDA's food inspection workforce numbers more than 420 staffers, with 10% to 15% of positions chronically unfilled, per the GAO and former staffers. Companies have announced more than 480 food recalls in the current fiscal year, already more than four of the previous five years.
Timeline
Congress passes the Food Safety Modernization Act after deadly outbreaks tied to spinach, cantaloupe and other produce. It sets a target of more than 19,000 foreign food inspections a year, plus a rule requiring bar codes on each batch of produce so contamination can be traced.
The FDA hits an all-time high of 1,700 foreign food inspections. It is also the last year inspectors visit the Taylor Farms site in Guanajuato, Mexico.
The COVID-19 pandemic pulls most FDA inspectors out of the field and touches off a wave of retirements and departures the agency has not recovered from.
Foreign food inspections drop another 17%, to 1,140.
The produce traceability bar-code rule was due to take effect. The FDA delayed it again after pushback from industry.
The Taylor Farms recall is announced, covering thousands of packaged salad products combining iceberg lettuce with other vegetables. The products had been shipped to major U.S. restaurant chains, including Yum Brands, owner of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.
Regulators retract a faulty test result that they had said found cyclospora on a Taylor Farms lettuce sample taken at the border.
FDA inspectors arrive at the Guanajuato farm, about a month after the recall was announced, and for the first time since 2019.
Reactions
"It took us too long to get boots on the ground," said Frank Yiannas, the FDA's former top food safety official. "When these outbreaks happen in fresh produce, you have to respond quickly because these are very complex and changing ecosystems."
Michael Rogers, who spent nearly 35 years in inspection roles at the agency, said the math does not work. "When you look at the numbers of inspections balanced against the responsibility of the FDA — in terms of all the firms domestically and internationally under its oversight — the agency just can't achieve what is required," he said, adding that the FDA still does many things "very well with limited resources."
The agency's defenders say inspections were never meant to carry the load alone. "Inspections will never be the only way to ensure the safety of imported products given the massive volume coming into the country," said Susan Mayne, the FDA's former food director, now at Yale University. "That's why FDA uses border inspections, importer inspections, sampling and other tools."
Brian Ronholm, a former Agriculture Department official now with Consumer Reports, was blunter about the delayed traceability rule: "There's widespread acknowledgment that these are complex issues, but when you have 17 years to prepare for a final exam you should be able to pass it."
Mexican food authorities say they have not found any positive samples or other red flags at the farm. FDA officials say they remain confident the company's farm is the source of the parasite.
What's Next
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, said the investigation into the outbreak is ongoing.
FDA officials are also studying how many foreign inspections should be conducted each year "to ensure oversight comparable" to the U.S. food supply — an admission that the 19,000 figure in the 2011 law is not the working number. The GAO has noted the agency "has not identified an appropriate annual target."
The Trump administration has floated ways to stretch the agency's resources, including a pilot program of one-day inspections. Rogers and other former officials say those abbreviated visits are not equivalent to traditional inspections, which can take a week or more to document serious problems.
More
Even before the pandemic, the FDA had never come close to the inspection targets Congress wrote into law. Former regulators say the 19,000 goal was never properly funded, and the agency's food budget has been essentially flat for years.
Recruiting and keeping inspectors is the other bottleneck. Inspectors who work internationally can spend half or more of their working hours traveling, a schedule that has long driven turnover. "Until you can better incentivize people to stay in those positions, I think the agency is going to continue to see high attrition, younger and less experienced investigators," Rogers said. "That ultimately may impact FDA's ability to enhance and increase inspections."
Inspectors were not among the 3,500 jobs targeted for termination by the Trump administration. But the agency did eliminate more than half the staffers who handle travel bookings, leaving inspectors to arrange most of their own flights and lodging.
Many experts argue the tools themselves need replacing, pointing to machine learning and remote monitoring of supplier practices. "We have to rethink how we oversee the safety of foreign producers," Yiannas said. "We can't use the same approaches and limited tools that we've used for the past 30 years."
Poll
What should Washington do about imported food safety?
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