Health Experts Express Concern About “Terrible Idea” to Scale Back CDC Monitoring of Dangerous Pathogens 

Last week’s reports that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) scaled back a federal-state program for monitoring foodborne illness was met with concern by health experts, who say it could put consumers and the general public at risk. 

“We know, and have known, that these are things that are associated with food poisoning…why in the world would you suddenly decide you want to stop monitoring it,” Lewis Ziska, PhD, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said.

According to NBC News, a CDC spokesperson confirmed that since July 1st, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) program has been surveilling only two pathogens: Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC). The program was previously tracking six additional dangerous pathogens, including Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia.

The states covered by FoodNet include Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, and parts of California and New York.

One of the pathogens removed from mandatory surveillance, Listeria, was responsible for a deadly outbreak in 2024 linked to Boar’s Head deli meat products that left at least 10 people dead. Since just the second half of July, there have been 8 food safety recalls posted on the Food and Drug Administration website that name possible Listeria contamination as the cause of the recall. 

“It would be like the FAA saying that we are just going to focus on airplane crashes from American and Delta, and we’re not [worrying] about any crashes that happen from Southwest, United, Alaska, Spirit, JetBlue, and Frontier,” Donald W. Schaffner, PhD, department chair, professor, and extension specialist in Food Science at Rutgers University, stated last week. He also referred to the scale back of monitoring as "a terrible idea."

Craig Hedberg, PhD, the codirector of the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence, said, “the disturbing thing about cutting FoodNet funds is that it normalizes the idea that foodborne disease surveillance is expensive and unimportant....In fact, it is the foundation of our food safety system, and needs further investments, not restrictions.”

Carlota Medus of the Minnesota Department of Health’s foodborne diseases unit told the Associated Press that “long term, it will affect our ability to use surveillance data to better understand risks in the food supply.”

In response to the news, the Maryland Health Department stated that it will continue to track all eight pathogens, and Georgia state officials said that they will continue voluntary monitoring of the six additional pathogens. 

Last week, CDC spokesman Paul Prince said that scaling back the program “will allow FoodNet staff to prioritize core activities,” and “steward resources effectively.”

A CDC document reported in the press noted that the move was made partly because “funding has not kept pace with the resources required to maintain the continuation of FoodNet surveillance for all eight pathogens.”

Shakeup at the CDC

News of the scaled-back pathogen monitoring program comes amid ongoing tumult at the CDC. Director Susan Monarez was fired by the Trump Administration in August following comments she made about Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Her attorneys stated that “when CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece this week, Monarez said that she was fired after refusing to “compromise science itself” regarding vaccine policies Kennedy has sought to implement. 

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday, Kennedy was asked about Monarez’s firing and the recent shakeup at the CDC. Kennedy said that she was asked to resign because “I asked her, are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said, ‘No.”

He also said that Monarez’s firing was “just the start” and that more moves should be expected from his office.