{"id":4085,"date":"2026-09-08T14:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T14:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaultinsider.top\/?p=4085"},"modified":"2026-09-08T14:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T14:46:13","slug":"cyclospora-outbreak-came-after-the-fda-conducted-nearly-35-less-foreign-food-inspections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vaultinsider.top\/?p=4085","title":{"rendered":"Cyclospora outbreak came after the FDA conducted nearly 35% less foreign food inspections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2286963573-e1788877413201.jpg?w=2048\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Food and Drug Administration\u00a0inspections of foreign food sites \u2014 including the Mexican farm linked to the ongoing outbreak \u2014 are down nearly 35% since 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to agency records reviewed by The Associated Press. The\u00a0pandemic\u00a0kicked off a wave of\u00a0retirements and departures\u00a0among FDA inspectors that continues to this day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even before COVID-19, the agency had long failed to hit its congressionally mandated targets for international inspections. And recent\u00a0staffing cuts, reorganizations and other\u00a0upheavals under President Donald Trump\u00a0could mean even fewer inspections in the years ahead, according to former senior FDA officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhen you look at the numbers of inspections balanced against the responsibility of the FDA \u2014 in terms of all the firms domestically and internationally under its oversight \u2014 the agency just can\u2019t achieve what is required,\u201d said Michael Rogers, who spent nearly 35 years in various inspection roles within the agency. He added that FDA continues to do many things \u201cvery well with limited resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Trump administration has proposed new approaches to stretch agency resources \u2014 including a pilot program of one-day inspections. Rogers and other officials say the abbreviated inspections are not equivalent to traditional ones, which can take a week or more to document serious problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FDA officials have long made the case that inspections are only one tool to oversee safety.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cInspections will never be the only way to ensure the safety of imported products given the massive volume coming into the country,\u201d said Susan Mayne, FDA\u2019s former\u00a0food director\u00a0who is now at Yale University. \u201cThat\u2019s why FDA uses border inspections, importer inspections, sampling and other tools.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the\u00a0outbreak in iceberg lettuce\u00a0has also laid bare the potential downsides of those approaches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In July, regulators were forced to retract a\u00a0faulty test result\u00a0that they claimed found cyclospora on a sample of Taylor Farms\u2019 lettuce obtained at the border. Despite the error, FDA officials say they are confident the company\u2019s farm is the source of the diarrhea-causing parasite. Mexican food authorities, however, say they have not found any positive samples or other red flags there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees FDA, said the agency\u2019s investigation is ongoing. Additionally, FDA officials are studying how many foreign inspections should be conducted annually \u201cto ensure oversight comparable\u201d to the U.S. food supply.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">FDA inspectors took a month to arrive at Mexican farm<\/h4>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FDA inspectors arrived at the Taylor Farms site in Guanajuato, Mexico, in mid-August, about one month after the recall was announced July 17.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was their first visit there since 2019. That year marked an all-time high for foreign food inspections before the FDA\u00a0pulled most of its staff\u00a0from the field\u00a0during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inspections for food \u2014 along with\u00a0drugs, medical devices and other products\u00a0\u2014 still haven\u2019t recovered. And foreign food inspections actually fell further behind last year, down 17% to 1,140 in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While inspectors were not among the 3,500 jobs\u00a0targeted for termination\u00a0by the Trump administration, the agency did eliminate more than half the\u00a0staffers who handle travel bookings. That\u2019s left inspectors to handle most of their own flights, lodging and other logistics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Food experts say it shouldn\u2019t have taken four weeks to get inspectors on-site in Mexico, considering the scale and number of people sickened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt took us too long to get boots on the ground,\u201d said Frank Yiannas, the former top food safety official at FDA. \u201cWhen these outbreaks happen in fresh produce, you have to respond quickly because these are very complex and changing ecosystems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Taylor Farms recall involved thousands of packaged salad products combining iceberg lettuce with other vegetables. The products were shipped to major U.S. restaurant chains, including Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to FDA figures, companies have announced more than 480 food recalls in the current fiscal year, already surpassing four out of the five previous years.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Food inspection targets have gone unmet for over a decade<\/h4>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Washington has tried before to overhaul the U.S. food safety system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A string of deadly outbreaks involving spinach, cantaloupe and other produce led Congress to pass the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011, which required additional testing, training and monitoring of hygiene conditions at farms. The legislation also set aggressive goals for FDA foreign inspections \u2014 targets the agency has never met.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under the law, the FDA is supposed to inspect more than 19,000 international food sites annually. The agency hit an all-time high of 1,700 in 2019 \u2014 less than one-tenth of the target, according to the Government Accountability Office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former FDA regulators say the 19,000 target is unachievable and has never been properly funded by Congress \u2014 which has left FDA\u2019s food budget essentially flat for years. Still, the FDA \u201chas not identified an appropriate annual target,\u201d GAO noted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps the biggest challenge to boosting inspections is recruiting new inspectors, and retaining those FDA already has.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The FDA\u2019s food inspection workforce includes more than 420 staffers, although 10% to 15% of its positions have been chronically unfilled, according to the GAO and former staffers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inspectors who work internationally can spend 50% or more of their working time traveling, a grueling schedule that has long caused turnover among FDA staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUntil 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,\u201d said Rogers. \u201cThat ultimately may impact FDA\u2019s ability to enhance and increase inspections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many experts say new approaches, including machine learning and remote monitoring of supplier practices, could help alleviate some of the need for inspections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have to rethink how we oversee the safety of foreign producers,\u201d Yiannas said. \u201cWe can\u2019t use the same approaches and limited tools that we\u2019ve used for the past 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 2011 food safety law called on manufacturers to place bar codes on each batch of produce, so that it can be quickly traced in the event of contamination. The rule was supposed to take effect in January, following years of discussions and revisions with produce companies. But the FDA again delayed its implementation after pushback from industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s 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,\u201d said Brian Ronholm, a former Department of Agriculture official who is now with Consumer Reports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Associated Press\u2019 health and science coverage receives financial support from the\u00a0AP Fund for Journalism\u00a0and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s\u00a0standards\u00a0for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at\u00a0AP.org.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#Cyclospora #outbreak #FDA #conducted #foreign #food #inspections<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Food and Drug Administration\u00a0i&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6996,2451,753,3711,405,1853,886,3539,2417,6721,337],"class_list":["post-4085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-conducted","tag-cyclospora","tag-fda","tag-food","tag-food-and-drink","tag-foreign","tag-health","tag-inspections","tag-outbreak","tag-outbreaks","tag-recalls"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cyclospora outbreak came after the FDA conducted nearly 35% less foreign food inspections - 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