Yves here. While many correctly celebrated the attention RFK, Jr. is bringing to the poor quality of the US diet and the many food-like substances that are part of our food, there is a substantial gap between his talk and what is likely to result.
His Health and Human Services Department does seem to be taking one important step forward, which is also low-hanging fruit: eliminating additives that the EU has outlawed as hazardous. However, these positive measures do not offset potential big steps back.
We have expressed our concerns that remarks made by RFK, Jr. suggest that he would loosen already dangerously lax US dietary supplement regulations. The part he seems most likely to undo are prohibitions against dietary supplement companies making medical claims in the absence of clinical trial evidence. IM Doc has explained repeatedly and long form how good drug companies are in constructing studies so as to hide dangerous side effects (Vioxx is the poster child here) as well as make marginal results look better than they are. Imagine how many supplement companies would prey on cancer victims, for starters, claiming that their potions would be a cure (I even provided an example from a less regulated market in a recent post1).
As you can see below, another area of concern is food regulation. Among other things, RFK, Jr. is a raw milk fan. It actually is possible to run a raw milk dairy under FDA regulations; a friend in Los Angeles grew up eating raw milk butter and cheeses from Altadena dairy.2 So he is opposed to pasteurization, which has been considered a major public safety advance. A reminder of the stakes, from the Louisiana Department of Health:
Pasteurization is a process by which milk is heated to a specific temperature for a set period of time to kills harmful bacteria that can lead to diseases like as listeriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria and brucellosis. Research shows no meaningful difference in the nutrient content of pasteurized and unpasteurized milk, despite claims to the contrary.
The article below describes how food safety in the US had already fallen under Biden, and how Republicans fought efforts to reduce pathogen risks.
So I would hold my breath and then some before assuming that RFK, Jr’s interventions in the food system will wind up being a net positive for health, as opposed to the profits of certain types of providers. That jury is still out.
By Shannon Kelleher. Originally published at The New Lede
A Trump administration move to axe key food safety advisory committees could leave the public more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses, critics fear, particularly alongside current legislative efforts to undermine proposed safety regulations on food processors.
The decision to cut the committees, which brought together academics, industry researchers and consumer advocates to advise agencies on food safety, comes after hospitalizations and deaths from foodborne illnesses more than doubled last year, with most illnesses attributed to the same harmful pathogens that the groups were working to address. And it comes less than a month after Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would block the implementation of a proposed new regulatory framework for reducing Salmonella contamination in raw poultry that was introduced under former President Joe Biden.
“It doesn’t appear that this administration at the highest level seems to care about food safety,” said Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist for the group Consumer Reports who was serving on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF).
Loss of Expert Input
The USDA announced March 6 that it was terminating NACMCF, which provided scientific advice and recommendations to the USDA, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a broad range of issues related to pathogens and public health. The USDA said all work should stop immediately, citing President Donald Trump’s Feb. 19 executive order to pare down the federal bureaucracy.
The agency also terminated the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI), which advised the USDA on the safety of meat and poultry inspection programs.
Elaine Scallan Walter, the co-director of the Colorado Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence at the Colorado School of Public Health who has not served on either committee, said she was “dismayed” by the decision to eliminate them.
“Threats to food safety evolve constantly,” said Walter. “There is a need for cutting-edge research that develops new strategies to keep Americans safe. NACMCF and NACMPI currently support USDA in finding ways to address pressing new food safety threats based on evidence. Defunding centers of excellence and collaboration puts us all at risk.”
The decision to eliminate the committees “significantly reduces opportunities for expert engagement with the USDA,” said Bryan Hitchcock, Chief Science and Technology Officer at the Institute for Food Technologists, an international nonprofit society for food professionals that includes members from industry, academia and government. “This loss of expert input can create gaps in the thoroughness and rigor of our food safety protocols and reduces public engagement and transparency in the process.
A USDA spokesperson said that terminating the committees is part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate inefficiencies, and “strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people.”
The agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) “continues to deliver its mission to keep the supply of meat, poultry and egg products safe, wholesome and properly labeled for consumers,” the USDA spokesperson said.
“It Wasn’t Frivolous”
At the time of its elimination, members of NACMCF, which was established in 1988, were researching how modern genomic techniques can more accurately predict and control leading foodborne pathogens including E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella, which caused most foodborne illnesses in 2024, according to a recent report by the US PIRG Education Fund.
Last year, the advisory group published a report in the Journal of Food Protection with criteria the USDA could use to prevent Salmonella infections from poultry products.
NACMCF was also preparing to release a report with recommendations on the bacteria cronobacter after an outbreak in powdered infant formula from September 2021 to February 2022 that panicked parents, said Randy Worobo, a then-current NACMCF member and professor of food science at Cornell University who said he was nominated to serve on the committee by a person in the poultry industry. The report is now “dead in the water,” he said.
“It wasn’t frivolous, it was very directed and relevant topics that we worked on,” said Worobo. “Personally, I think the committee actually streamlined bureaucracy.”
Linda Harris, a recently retired distinguished professor of microbial food safety from the University of California, Davis, said she considers her work on NACMCF to be some of the most consequential of her 34-year career. Harris previously served two terms on NACMCF, including one that in 2007 published recommendations for safely cooking poultry.
“I believe the outputs from these committees over the years have led to better regulations and guidance documents than would have been possible from only internal committees – a win for the food industry, regulators, and consumer,” said Harris, adding that they are a huge return on investment for the government and taxpayers.
There are other federal committees that work on food safety issues, including the FDA’s Science Board, which does not focus solely on food safety, and the CDC’s Food Safety Modernization Act Surveillance Working Group, which works on foodborne disease surveillance.
However, “there are no other committees like NACMCF” that jointly advised multiple agencies on food safety issues, said Barbara Kowalcyk, Director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University who previously served on NACMCF and other advisory committees.
Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at the Consumer Federation of America, served on NACMPI during the first Trump administration. The committee made recommendations on E. coli testing, labeling frozen raw chicken products, and managing Listeria risk, he said.
NACMPI, established in 1971, also included committee members from across sectors – large and small meat processors, academia, state regulators and extension agencies, and public health agencies, providing a forum to establish common ground in “controversial policy debates,” said Gremillion.
Scientists from many large food corporations and industry groups have served on both committees, including, most recently, Cargill Protein, the North American Meat Institute, Butterball, Smithfield Foods, Newman’s Own and the American Foods Group.
Food Safety’s Future
While cutting the committees may not lead to immediate food safety problems, it could result in “unanticipated consequences in the future,” said Craig Hedberg, co-director of the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence at the University of Minnesota, who did not serve on the committees.
“My great concern with the directions the current administration is taking with respect to these and other advisory bodies, is the sense that the administration wants to have the ability to make decisions without critical review by external experts,” said Hedberg. “This is, no doubt, more efficient…however, it will likely lead to adopting policies that are not fully thought out.”
Without NACMCF and NACMPI providing outside scientific input, food safety may be left up to federal agencies that are responsible for overseeing particular foods, said Worobo. “They’re going to be solely responsible for making decisions and recommendations without any kind of third-party input, especially from industry. I think there’s going to be perhaps a lapse of a better understanding of what the industry’s doing and what the industry should do.”
Beyond the loss of these food safety advisory committees, Worobo is concerned that CDC staffing cuts under the Trump administration will impact surveillance programs important to human health and food safety.
“You can have nutritious food, but if it’s not safe then it can’t be considered food,” he said.
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1 Note the less regulated market is Malaysia. There was a marketing presentation made here, but the sales are MLM, by an individual who appears to be transporting the goods into Thailand. Thailand gives liberal access to prescription drugs; pharmacists can dispense antibiotics and other medications, but they seem pretty strict about dietary supplements (no hormones like DHEA or melatonin sold OTC). So I question whether these sales were even legal here.
2 I suspect they did not sell actual raw milk. The butter was delish.
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“Imagine how many supplement companies would prey on cancer victims, for starters, claiming that their potions would be a cure”
Reminds me of the stories they tell around here about the original William Avery Rockefeller Sr when he came north of the US in the 1850s to escape his… baggage. They say he sold petroleum distillate as a cure for cancer. That’s how he funded his real estate gambles.
On the other hand: what if those USDA committees are currently populated largely by people beholden to Big Ag? It could be that shutting down, then reforming with new members is the plan. Not that I know, of course. / ;)
Big Ag is not going away any time soon, and neither is factory farming. And so it is highly doubtful that RFK, Jr. will do more than engage in some feel good, nice optics measures like outlawing particularly dodgy additives. But that does very little to improve food safety or health across the public at large.
Here is a litmus test: aspartame. It was the most contested FDA food additive approval. It has gotten way way way more consumer complaints than any other FDA non-drug approval. Sucralose (a right-left reversal of the sugar molecule) is probably not healthy but also likely less pernicious, and super-sweet natural stevia are possible alternatives.
If he does not outlaw aspartame, this whole program is one big headfake.
I’m not sure how RFK’s being a fan of raw milk reflects poorly on his agenda. I’ve worked on a raw milk dairy twice and the farmer was adamant that with proper attention and care to the animals, she would be able to tell just from inspecting them if the milk was safe, and that pasteurization was needed for massive farms that treat the cows abusively (ie keep them in unclean conditions or milk them and sell it even when they’re sick) and want to sell the milk even when it would otherwise be unsafe. The stakes are even higher because milk from many large farms often gets mixed and one farm’s abusive and inattentive practices could ruin milk from many. Unfortunately, since so many dairies operate this way, maximizing profit at the expense of the animals and food, pasteurization really is a requirement — for them. I know there were never any milk safety issues while I worked at the dairy.
I and many people I know always prefer raw milk if we can get it. It definitely feels more nourishing and satisfying, and knowing how very politicized the issue of pasteurization is (because very large dairy operations couldn’t exist without it) I would be very surprised if the industry were not somehow biasing research that they could then cite showing it has no negative nutritional effects. I know I’ve heard of research showing the opposite. Owners of these large farms have had activists arrested for trying to document the animals’ treatment – look up “ag gag” laws to learn about it. Whereas where I worked, the animals were treated great, so visitors were never blocked from observing. Even without carefully scrutinizing industry-cited research, these draconian ag-gag laws and complete unwillingness to let people see how the animals are treated shows how untrustworthy the owners are. I would need to scrutinize their studies before trusting them.
I don’t know if RFK Jr has any political agenda around raw milk, but merely the fact that he’s a fan is already a plus in my book, not a negative.
I don’t like sounding mean, but are you serious? Your only evidence that raw milk is safe comes from a single farm proprietor who was also your boss? As in both you and she have an economic incentive to believe raw milk is safe?
Even if she regularly tested her milk (you hint at the reverse, that she merely relied on the look of her cows), you expect readers to accept that one unverified data point from a conflicted source amounts to evidence the general public should take seriously, v. the considerable number of diseases that can contracted through raw milk?
This when you also make allegations about conflicted Big Ag studies, which is exactly what is wrong with your case? That’s an ad hominem attack, as in a logical fallacy. I have no doubt some are overstated but the onus is on you to provide evidence as to why their conclusions are wrong.
Your proposal is basically “assume a can opener” as in assume dairy farmer operator vigilance. The USDA already does a shabby job of food system oversight. Its budget is being slashed so there will be much less in the way of supervision. And many small dairy farms, which is implicit in your suggestion, would require a big increase in the number of inspectors given the larger number of operations.
That’s a poor basis for assuring public safety.
And “feels more nourishing and satisfying” is not evidence of anything. Sex without a condom is also more satisfying. Feelings are not proof of safety.
And RFK, Jr. is a crank and regularly misrepresents studies (I caught that in >25% of his footnotes in his Fauci book). See here for another example: https://theconversation.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-says-vitamin-a-protects-you-from-deadly-measles-heres-what-the-study-he-cites-actually-says-251465
Amends, don’t want to dog pile but ….
I really wish people understood the whole “Natural” foods is a misnomer. Unpacked this long ago on NC e.g. before cancer/heart disease became the big killers it was gastrointestinal. Made even worse by random Mfg’ers of canned goods before the FDA came in. Hinze drove that advocacy as a social good, now look at it … sigh …