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It’s been nearly 20 years, but during George W. Bush’s second term, historian Rick Perlstein coined a memorable phrase: “E. coli conservatism.” The slogan coincided with a rash of food safety controversies that were tied to lax governmental safeguards.
The point of the phrase, of course, was to convey a larger policy point: When government pulls back on regulations that protect the public, there are often hazardous consequences. (Though the video is no longer online, The Rachel Maddow Show had a great segment on this back in 2011, which I wrote about before I joined the team.)
Years later, there’s another Republican administration with some risky ideas about food safety, and by any fair measure, it appears “E. coli conservatism” has mutated into something even worse. The Washington Post reported:
Two federal committees tasked with advising policymakers on food safety have been disbanded as part of the administration’s cost-cutting and government-shrinking goals, according to advocates and one committee member. The elimination of the panels, whose members included experts from academia, industry and nonprofits, has raised alarms among some food-safety advocates, who point to large-scale outbreaks in recent years as a reason for needing even more attention and modern science around the issue.
The Post’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, comes on the heels of related reporting from The New York Times, which noted that the Trump administration eliminated the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.
The reports noted that the panels have been working on everything from identifying foodborne pathogens to examining contamination of powdered infant formula. Efforts such as these, however, will apparently now end.
Brian Ronholm, the director of food policy at Consumer Reports, said in a statement, “The termination of these two important advisory committees is very alarming and should serve as a warning to consumers that food safety will not be a priority at U.S.D.A. in the foreseeable future.”
Sandra Eskin, CEO of the advocacy group Stop Foodborne Illness, added, “Without the input of these committees, we have little confidence that the food safety policies at USDA and FDA will, in fact, Make America Healthy Again.”
The good news is these developments should only matter to Americans who eat food. The bad news is that’s literally everyone.
This news out of the Department of Agriculture dovetails with related news from the Department of Health and Human Services, which recently sent out emails asking most of its workforce to consider an offer to quit their jobs in exchange for $25,000. The list included food inspection workers at the FDA.
And did I mention that the Trump administration appointed Donald Trump Jr.’s hunting buddy to serve to the FDA’s Human Foods Program, overseeing all nutrition and food safety activities? Because that happened, too. His predecessor, Jim Jones, resigned last month, citing misguided firings across the agency.
“I was looking forward to working to pursue the department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,” Jones said in his resignation letter. He added that the Republican administration was showing “disdain for the very people” needed to make these changes.
I suspect many Americans who supported the GOP ticket last fall didn’t realize they were voting to scrap the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection, but that’s what they’re getting.