State lawmakers chew on possible food safety updates for Virginia in wake of federal cuts

Since taking his post in President Donald Trump s cabinet U S Secretary of Healthcare and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr has spearheaded a national movement to make America healthy again including a plan to phase out synthetic dyes from foods which have been linked to adverse effects in children Virginia lawmakers also worked on a law to ban synthetic dyes from foods in citizens schools that Gov Glenn Youngkin signed this spring But cuts to the federal agencies responsible for food regulation are alarming state Sen Ghazala Hashmi D-Chesterfield and Del Mark Sickles D-Fairfax noted on a call Wednesday and work against the food safety and the society robustness goals Kennedy has professed The Food and Drug Administration Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Infection Control and Prevention play key roles in regulating the nation s food supply from packaged products like baby formula to produce to animal products like meat and eggs Entities like the FDA and USDA ensure consumer protection through inspections while the CDC investigates sources of foodborne illness outbreaks From there the Department of Justice can prosecute those responsible for related mistakes if needed But in latest months a DOJ unit that handles such cases was disbanded several data-tracking divisions of CDC have been cut a President Joe Biden-era rule limiting salmonella levels in raw poultry has been withdrawn and two USDA food safety advisory committees were dismantled The cuts are part of overall shrinking efforts spearheaded by Trump advisor Elon Musk s Department of Regime Efficiency and hamper transparency concerning food safety Hashmi declared She cited a Washington Post summary about an Indiana boy who nearly died after eating a salad due to an E coli outbreak that had been traced last fall but not publicly disclosed since Trump s administration took office A lawsuit against the grower of the lettuce in the salad filed by the boy s parents last month noted the bacteria affecting the child was a match to the strain that killed a person and sickened about people in states last fall Federal wellbeing agencies then investigated the cases and linked them to a farm that grew romaine lettuce A February internal FDA memo linked a single lettuce producer and ranch as the contamination source but officers never issued population recommendations or identified the grower after the scrutiny The FDA under the Trump and RFK administration have decided not to name names or make the general aware of the dangers The parents deserve and we deserve accountability Hashmi reported Meanwhile one of the two FDA committees that were dismantled had been tasked with reviewing the regulatory process in the wake of a deadly Listeria outbreak in a Virginia-based Boar s Head facility that occurred last year After highlighting these challenges Hashmi and Sickles laid out their ideas for actions state lawmakers could take Both suggested legislators pursue updates to Virginia law that could constitute state-level food regulations As chair of the Senate s Tuition and Soundness committee Hashmi reported she s already pursuing similar measures when it comes to special schooling standards in Virginia to fill gaps created at the federal level But Sarah Sorscher a regulatory affairs director with the Center for Science in the Society Interest emphasized that even if states like Virginia pursue state-level regulations the nature of interstate food supply chains means there would still be gaps in consumer protections We can t rely on states to take care of issues because food could be coming in being served to Virginia consumers that s made in other states that have weaker protections Sorscher noted So that s sort of a failure of using the state system to address food safety Still Sickles thinks there are strategies Virginia could explore to bolster consumer protections when it comes to food safety He declared that state legislators haven t been as hands-on because of federal oversight on the matter but that he now plans to keep a closer eye on the issue and wants his colleagues in the General Assembly to do the same As chair of the House of Delegates Wellness and Human Services committee Sickles is planning a July boot camp gathering that will focus on social services and the state s wellness department We need to spend more time looking more closely into areas like this and we than we ever have before our committee Sickles explained Source