First up, the FDA is suspending quality control testing at the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) Proficiency Testing Program, according to a report from Reuters. The program tests for parasites like Cyclospora in spinach and the pesticide glyphosate in barley, among other foods. The suspension was announced internally at the FDA on Tuesday, according to Reuters, which cites an email distributed about staff leaving. The program oversees testing at about 170 labs, which will no longer get quality control checks through at least Sept. 30.
The changes to FERN are a direct result of staffing cuts at the HHS, which oversees agencies like the FDA and CDC. Kennedy is overseeing a reduction in force at the agency that’s seeing about 20,000 people leave through layoffs and departures.
Second, and perhaps even more troubling, is a report from CBS News that the FDA is currently making plans to end most food safety inspections at the federal level. The theory, if you can call it that, is that food safety is something that should only be done at the local level, and you don’t want federal inspectors to just “duplicate” work already done by states.
Stop putting fascist spin in the damn headline.
Add the FDA to the ever-growing list of bootlicking cowards.
As someone who lives in the US what the fuck am I supposed to do now? Just shop at bougie grocery stores and pray that those brands are still following some kind of standards? I don’t want to leave my home but I am worried it’s just going to keep getting worse and worse and I am too disabled to fight in a civil war if it comes to that.
Some tips are:
- Buy from local farms if you can. The fewer steps from you, the fewer chances for the food to be contaminated.
- Cook everything. Spinach and other greens will not be clean from simply being washed. No chances, you cook everything like you cook chicken.
- Grow what you can. Sometimes all you can get away with is an herb plant, sometimes you can have tubers.
These types of obstacles are usually better tackled as a community than individualistically. Talking with your neighbors and friends so you can all work together on this stuff is usually your best bet.
They do realize that a majority of republicans (who are elderly) are more susceptible to disease and death than the libs they think they’re dunking on right? Same goes for the children they claim to be protecting by doing all this. The children and the elderly are most susceptible to sickness and death from it, that’s not to say that anyone can’t get sick from food-borne illness, but their own and the ones they claim to protect will be disproportionately affected.
Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice he is willing to make.