Under President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the reach of the Food and Drug Administration is being scaled back by executive fiat. Reporting indicates that the FDA is suspending inspections that help ensure the safety of the nation’s food, amid broader staff cuts at HHS imposed by the new administration. Reuters recently reported that, among the inspections paused, the FDA “is suspending a quality control program for testing of fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division.” More specifically, “the agency suspended its proficiency testing program for Grade ‘A’ raw milk and finished products.”
It is only thanks to the power of the federal government that the United States has historically enjoyed safe food. Thanks to the efforts of an array of agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, we can reliably trust that the food we buy is safe and, if not, know about any outbreaks or recalls.
While some reformers succeeded in creating local agencies, by the 1920s, milk had earned a dangerous reputation.
It was not always like this and milk is the perfect food to show why. The dairy industry started off selling so-called “swill milk” to urban consumers in the mid-1800s. Such milk came from city-based dairy cows fed on mash and leftovers from nearby distillers and brewers. Reformers at the local and state levels campaigned for the construction of local milk regulators and against swill milk, because they feared its corrupting influence and low-grade grains in the feed.
While some reformers succeeded in creating local agencies, by the 1920s, milk had earned a dangerous reputation. Dairies spread dysentery, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, diphtheria and — most of all — bovine tuberculosis. Scientists at one of the precursors to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even worried that milk was more dangerous than ever, with one writing, “Milk is second in importance only to water as a vehicle of disease transmission.”
Out of Alabama, a plan emerged from a cooperative program organized by the state Board of Health and the public health service to begin coordinating the local, state and federal regulations into one inspection system. Their reasons included the failure of the current patchwork system, the failure to align regulatory standards, the ability of the dairy industry to overpower the fragmented inspection system and the necessity of milk being pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria. By the end of the 1920s, the federal government began to build just such a coordinated system. Out of these efforts was born the use of grading, including grade A, as well as the unpasteurized but still regulated raw milk sector.
The White House’s justification for scaling back federal authority is that the states will pick up the slack and take charge of their own consumer marketplaces. But historical examples show why a patchwork system of ad hoc state and local regulations was ineffective at ensuring milk was healthy.
As of 1938, when the national inspection system had not yet fully come together, milk was responsible for 25% of all foodborne disease outbreaks. In the subsequent three decades, the dairy inspection system grew in fits and starts, particularly during World War II and the Korean War. By 1965, that number had declined to 2.5%. That year, the federal government formally united milk inspection and created a unified standard for inspecting dairy products.
Milk regulations united the efforts of the federal government’s fragmented system to protect consumers.
The unified federal milk ordinance finally allowed the country to tackle a long-simmering problem. Milk is not only a perfect vector for bacteria to thrive, but it is also an excellent way for agricultural and industrial toxins to get into the food system and into the bodies of the people who consume milk, particularly children. No toxin was more feared at that time than residues of DDT, the once-formidable chemical that had ushered in a whole new chemical age in farming In 1965, the federal government forced all milk inspections to also test for pesticide residues. States like California had spent years trying to hammer out their own DDT regulations, but only federal power was able to force producers’ compliance.
Milk regulations united the efforts of the federal government’s fragmented system to protect consumers. In addition to the CDC ordinances, the FDA tested for residues and set ingredient standards; the USDA regulated agricultural uses of pesticides and other related chemicals and focused on eradicating animal diseases; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleaned up the environment to keep the cows safe from pollutants, including banning DDT in the mid-1970s.
An example of how these organizations had to work together to keep milk safe to consume was with the feed additive DES. The synthetic hormone was widely used to enhance cattle growth in the mid-20th century, following USDA approval. But the government continued monitoring its use in animal agriculture, and studies found that DES was carcinogenic. By the end of the 1970s, the FDA banned DES because it posed a threat to human health.
The FDA could ban chemicals like DES because Congress empowered it to do so. Its roots go back to public outcry unleashed by Upton Sinclair’s 1906 book “The Jungle.” But not until 1938 did Congress give the FDA the authority to directly regulate ingredients. Two decades later, another law gave the FDA the power to ban any substance known to be a carcinogen from entering into the consumer marketplace. Taken all together, agencies like the FDA provide Americans their only serious way to have a say in what they put into their bodies. As history shows, not only did producers put toxins into the food that Americans ate, but they also lacked the power to clean up their own industries.
Yet, lawmakers created these institutions to keep every American safe through the power of the federal government, the one thing that is potent enough to even try to hold food producers to account. Only the federal government possesses the tools of research coordination, national testing standards, recalls, federal lawsuits and public awareness campaigns. Time will tell if we can ever reassert these regulatory bodies’ authority, or re-create them if they are gone. Our health depends on it.