Why Is the US FDA Having So Many Food Recalls? - DTNS WEEKEND

Tom Merritt (0:08)

Welcome to the DTNs Weekend Edition, gratefully provided to you, and thanks for your support of this fine program. It becomes fine because you support it. So that's why we keep working all the way through the weekend to keep you safe from food. That's right, this weekend, we are talking about the unusual, or is it number of recalls from the US. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Niki is joining me to talk about this. Thank you, Dr. Niki, for talking to us. Again, you're the best.

Nicole Ackermans (0:37)

Well, thanks for having me. If I'm honest, I went to look this up for myself, and then I thought, this can be a segment.

Tom Merritt (0:42)

Yes, the best segments start that way. So let's go simple.

What's the deal? What's going on at the FDA? What's going on?

Nicole Ackermans (0:50)

I mean, you may have noticed there's been, it feels like a lot of food recalls. There have been 26 in the US. I should state, I don't know what's going on abroad, but there have been 26 recalls in August alone, and you've probably heard about the onions, jalapenos, lettuce, the poop lettuce, popsicles, eggs, rice, and all that.

Tom Merritt (1:09)

How did lettuce become poop lettuce, but not poopsicles?

Nicole Ackermans (1:12)

Because the popsicles have glass in them.

Tom Merritt (1:14)

Oh yeah, that just doesn't work. It's not as funny.

Nicole Ackermans (1:17)

It's actually quite sad.

Tom Merritt (1:19)

So I know you looked at the numbers, and I know everyone thinks like, oh, there's so many, it's worse this year. Is it? Are there actually more recalls than usual?

Nicole Ackermans (1:29)

So the answer is it's complicated. There have been 162 recalls so far in 2026 That's about half of the 320 that were reported in 2025 We're about halfway through the year, so it's not really that different.

On the other hand, there's also been a list of 21 foodborne illness investigations done by the FDA. Sorry, that was for 2025 In 2026, we were at about 18, so maybe a bit high, but also not crazy outside of average. Really, the issue here is the scale and severity of the outbreak. So you have heard of the poop lettuce, the cyclosporosis outbreak, because it affected so many people. It's affected over 28,000 people, resulted in about 800 hospitalizations and maybe a few deaths. I say maybe because there's still investigations ongoing because the outbreak is still ongoing. So that is the largest cyclospora outbreak ever recorded. And maybe, depending on how much data we get, the largest foodborne illness outbreak ever, or in the top three.

And like I said, we're lacking a bit more data, but it is at a big scale, and that's why you're thinking about it.

Tom Merritt (2:40)

We have to consider it over before we can say how big it actually got, right? Because we're in the middle of it still. Exactly. And that makes sense to me. So not necessarily more recalls, but definitely something that is going to catch your attention because of the scale of it. So you're going to hear about it more. And when you hear about it more, it seems like there is more. And because of that scale, it's a more severe problem. And so it affects people more, which means you're more likely to know someone or be someone affected by it than in previous recalls.

Why are we having these?

Nicole Ackermans (3:15)

Well, so you may have heard that there, and we probably covered it actually on DTNS last summer, I think. But last year, the administration laid off around 3,000 workers at the CDC. That's about a 28% reduction of the workforce. Also around 3K at the Food and Drug Administration, and around 1,000 at Food Inspection Services. This may ring some bells.

So because there are fewer expert staff members, there are also a lot of retirements, if you remember, as part of these reductions of kind of pushing people into retirement. Companies now have less regulatory oversight. There's just less people to do the recognition.

Tom Merritt (3:50)

There are less eyes, yeah.

Nicole Ackermans (3:52)

There's also been a delay in implementing new laws that require companies to comply with food and safety regulations, which would help regulators track where the food is coming from and where it's going during an outbreak, which would be nice to know.

Tom Merritt (4:07)

That could help shorten the outbreak if you know where it's coming from.

Nicole Ackermans (4:09)

Yeah, or catch it early, and that's not really being enforced right now. And importantly, there was a big scaling back of a surveillance warning system called Foodnet in July, so right before the cyclospora outbreak started. And they claim that it's due to a lack of funding, so Foodnet is supposed to track infections, and specifically, it used to track eight infections, including cyclospora, salmonella and E coli, but now it's reduced to only tracking salmonella and E coli, and the other tracking ones are optional. It's kind of like your local health department decides whether they want to track it or not. It's no longer mandatory.