Tag Archives: food safety

The UK–US trade deal is being celebrated in Westminster as the first tangible post-Brexit win for a beleaguered trading nation. The UK–US trade deal explicitly includes agricultural and food products, lowering tariffs and increasing access for American exports such as beef, pork, poultry, dairy, and grains, meaning a greater volume of US food will enter the UK market. However, at the very same time, food safety in the United States, overseen predominantly by the Food and Drug Administration and The U.S. Department of Agriculture, is being dismantled. The UK, lacking the capacity to screen what enters our ports, is not prepared for this.

In March 2025, controversial US Health Secretary RFK Jr. laid off 3,500 FDA staff — nearly 20% of the agency — including over 170 inspectors from its Office of Inspections and Investigations (Aboulenein and Roy, 2025; Oversight Committee, 2025). The FDA was already critically understaffed, with just 443 inspectors covering more than 36,000 food facilities (Douglas and Polansek, 2025).

Additionally, RFK jr. has significantly weakened USDA food safety oversight. In March, he eliminated two scientific advisory panels—NACMCF and NACMPI—removing expert guidance on microbiological and meat safety. In May, USDA staff unions reported over 15,000 departures, including essential inspectors from The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), significantly impairing pathogenic outbreak response capability. In July, the USDA fired 70 foreign contract scientists at the Agricultural Research Service due to purported “security concerns” but announced these roles would remain vacant amid a hiring freeze, risking critical food safety research and pathogen monitoring.

At the FDA, there has been an immediate suspension of critical quality-control testing for food laboratories after losing key scientists, halting planned checks for glyphosate in barley and Cyclospora in spinach. Essential bird flu testing in dairy, amid escalating mammal-to-human transmission rates of the ongoing epidemic, in dairy has also been indefinitely paused (Douglas, 2025), leading to FDA food division chief Jim Jones resigning, calling the cuts “fruitless”.

This is not an internal crisis. The United States exports a massive 20% of its agricultural products globally, and a collapse in its inspection regime means unsafe food will not just be consumed in America, but will contaminate the supply chains of any country that accepts US produce, including the UK as part of its new trade deal.

One might hope the UK could intercept unsafe food slipping through the crumbling US system. However, it is not ready. Since Brexit, the UK has repeatedly delayed implementing full sanitary checks on agricultural imports, and British consumers have paid the price: For example, between 2020 and 2024, this lack of border inspections enabled salmonella-contaminated chicken from Poland to enter the UK poisoning “hundreds of people, including children”.