During a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) questioned Dr. David Kessler, the former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, about the impact of mass layoffs.
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00:00I recognize Ms. Frost from Florida.
00:02Thank you, Mr. Chair.
00:03This past month, the FDA reported 15 food and drug recalls.
00:08That's about a recall every 48 hours.
00:11It was even higher in January and February.
00:13And many of these recalls were very serious.
00:15They were for things like food allergen, cross-contamination, cancer-causing arsenic,
00:21and lead, which can cause severe learning disabilities in children and miscarriages in adults.
00:26The past month also saw pet foods contaminated with bird flu.
00:31While these recalls save lives when folks are alerted in time,
00:35they also can cost working families time and money to replace recalled food.
00:40This year, tuna was recalled.
00:42That's about $3 per can down the drain.
00:44Prepared salads were recalled, another $5 each.
00:47Frozen dinners were recalled, $4, $5, $6 a serving.
00:51These numbers might seem small, but folks managing a family budget know how grocery costs add up
00:56and what a waste it is to throw out food.
00:59Dr. Kessler, how does the work of the FDA's labs and inspectors help catch problems
01:04before bad food hits the grocery stores?
01:08The laboratories are absolutely essential at that detection.
01:12Four FDA laboratories, two food labs, two medical product labs have been shut.
01:21Those recalls that are absolutely essential, the people who communicate about those recalls,
01:28the communication shops, have been gutted.
01:34Trump and Musk claimed that the mass layoffs at the VA and the Social Security Administration
01:40wouldn't have impacted the services, but we're seeing that's not true.
01:44Services for veterans, seniors across the entire country are getting worse.
01:47Wait times are at all-time highs.
01:49Now Trump and RFK Jr. are claiming that the mass layoffs at the FDA
01:53won't negatively impact food inspections.
01:56Dr. Kessler, how could mass layoffs at the FDA impact food inspections?
02:02It will have a real and demonstrable effect.
02:07Yes, the inspectors have not been touched, as of today, from what I can tell.
02:14But all their support, all their infrastructure is gone.
02:20So all those inspectors can't get the supplies they need to inspect.
02:25They have to do their own travel.
02:28Their travel cards are not working.
02:31I'm not sure what the strategy is.
02:34And what does this mean for Americans' vulnerability to serious food-borne illnesses?
02:41I fear that we are less safe today.
02:45You know, I wish that were not the case.
02:49But you can't take thousands of people out of the FDA
02:53and not understand that you're putting the American people at risk.
02:58You know, I'm one of the 33 million Americans living with potentially life-threatening food allergies.
03:06They have almost died, actually, because of an anaphylactic attack.
03:11Dr. Kessler, how could cuts of the FDA impact day-to-day safety of folks like me
03:16who live with serious food allergies?
03:18The people who communicate, who share that information, who share that risk information,
03:26the people who write the policies, that give the industry the guidance of what to put on the labels.
03:33They're not there anymore.
03:36Say we're lucky and these mass layoffs have no, you know, impact at the FDA
03:42with undercovering potential food-borne disease outbreaks before they spread.
03:47How will cuts to FDA staff impact the people who are still there,
03:51their ability to alert the public to the threat of allergen cross-contamination
03:55or an E. coli outbreak?
03:59I think the effect of these cuts, not only on the people who left,
04:05you know, and I'm hearing repeat stories about, you know, how these were done,
04:14when they were done, right?
04:17I mean, the real thoughtless, careless, almost mean aspects of how this information was communicated.
04:27But people are getting up, people who have enormous expertise,
04:34tens, decades of expertise on those kind of questions, on those allergies,
04:41you know, they're not staying at the energy.
04:45And recruitment, getting the best and the brightest,
04:48something that we all believed in, that we dedicated our careers
04:51to be able to go into these agencies and provide that kind of public service.
04:57What signal is that sending?
05:00We're losing generations of future public servants,
05:03and that concerns me greatly.
05:05Thank you. I yield back.