Report: Justice Department to Close Branch that Enforces Food and Drug Safety Laws

The Trump administration will disband a Justice Department unit that handles criminal and civil enforcement of U.S. food and drug safety laws, the American Prospect reported this week. 

The Consumer Protection Branch enforces laws that "protect Americans’ health, safety, economic security, and identity integrity." It is also authorized to defend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other federal agencies from civil litigation. It is staffed by over 215 attorneys, support professionals, and law enforcement. The CPB handles criminal cases to enforce the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and enforces statutes for the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

Quoting a source at the Justice Department, the American Prospect reported that the CPB will be closed by the end of the fiscal year, on September 30th. 

The closure of the CPB “comes at a time when economic turmoil could make frauds and scams more attractive. The lack of enforcement could present an invitation to these unsavory characters to go after vulnerable elements in society,” the American Prospect wrote. 

The reported move follows a number of large, highly-publicized layoffs at government health agencies. 

In early April, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it is cutting 10,000 full-time employees across health agencies. The Department also said it will shrink from 28 divisions to 15, including the new Administration for a Healthy America. The staffing cuts include 3,500 full-time employees at the FDA, 2,400 at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1,200 at the National Institutes of Health, and 300 at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In response to the reported layoffs, former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf wrote on LinkedIn that “the FDA as we've known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed. I believe that history will see this as a huge mistake.”

In February, a coalition of consumer, industry, and public health stakeholders published a letter in which they said that “adequate resources are critical not only for outbreak response but also for developing and updating food safety standards, providing science-based industry guidance, and ensuring a well-trained federal-state inspection force to protect the integrity of our food system.”

In addition, in March, the Trump administration announced the decision to eliminate two safety advisory committees in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The committees include the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMF) and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMI).

In a statement, Brian Ronholm, Director of Food Policy at Consumer Reports, said, “the termination of these two important advisory committees is very alarming and should serve as a warning to consumers that food safety will not be a priority at USDA in the foreseeable future.”

Earlier this month, CBS News reported that the FDA is planning to scrap most of its routine food inspections work, quoting federal health officials. CBS wrote that the inspections would be “effectively outsourced” to state and local authorities. 

CBS stated that FDA employees have been working to shift the agency’s food inspections to the states for years, to free up resources to focus on higher priority and foreign inspections. 

“There’s so much work to go around. And us duplicating their work just doesn't make sense,” a former FDA official told CBS.