A federal state partnership that monitors foods of food originally reduced its operations almost two months ago.
From July 1, the program of the active surveillance network (Foodnet) of food origin reduced surveillance to two pathogens: Salmonella and Shiga producer of E. Coli (STEC), a spokesperson for Disease Control and Prevention told NBC News.
Before July, the program followed the infections caused by six additional pathogens: Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio and Yersinia. Some may cause serious or deadly diseases, especially for newborns and pregnant people who have weakened immune systems.
The surveillance of the six pathogens is no longer required for the 10 states participating in the program, although these states are not prevented from carrying out surveillance by themselves.
Food security experts fear that the move, which has not been made public before, could make people more difficult for public health to note whether certain diseases of food increase, then the slow response time to epidemics.
Foodnet is a collaboration between the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture and 10 State health services. Its surveillance area covers around 54 million people, or 16% of the American population. The network includes Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee and some California and New York counties.
“Although Foodnet will lead to its objective Salmonella And Stec, it will maintain both its infrastructure and the quality it has come to represent, “wrote the spokesperson for the CDC.” The narrowing of foodnet report requirements and associated activities will allow food staff to prioritize basic activities. “”
A list of discussion points that the CDC provided in the Department of Public Health in Connecticut, seen by NBC News, quotes a reason for the change: “The funding has not followed the rate of the resources necessary to maintain the continuation of the surveillance of food for the eight pathogens.”
The CDC spokesman said on Monday that other systems are surveillance of the six pathogens that had been withdrawn from Foodnet. For example, state health services are still able to report cases via the national disease monitoring system. And the Listeria initiative of the CDC collects confirmed listeriosis reports in the laboratory – serious infections of the consumption of food contaminated by listeria.
But Foodnet is the only surveillance system that actively seeks several foods of food origin at the federal level, according to food security experts. Other federal surveillance systems are passive, which means that the CDC is based on state health services to inform it of cases.
Experts fear that without the active surveillance of the eight pathogens, public health officials will not be able to adequately compare trends over time or notice whether cases of specific disease are starting to increase. Experts also fear that the reduction in foodnet operations would no longer be difficult to identify and respond quickly to epidemics.
Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the George Washington Food and Nutritional Security Institute, described the decision to reduce net surveillance, “very disappointing”.
“A large part of the work that me and many, many, many, many others have spent improving food security in the last 20 or 30 years are only disappearing,” she said. Kowalcyk’s son died in 2001 complications from an E infection. Coli of food origin, and since then it has pleaded for improvements to American food security policy.
Kowalcyk said the Federal Food Security Budget had not followed the cost of inflation and that the federal funding for state health services have probably made maintenance of dune surveillance more difficult. The CDC has requested a budget of $ 72 million for food security for the 2026 financial year, almost the same as he asked for the past years.
It is not entirely clear how the modifications made to Foodnet hitherto affect the level of surveillance at the level of the state.
Oregon and Connecticut health services said they were aware of the changes on Monday. Meanwhile, the Georgia public health service said on Friday that it had not received any official CDC reviews. And the New Mexico Health Department said it was waiting for the CDC notification to determine the scope of its future surveillance.
The Maryland Department of Health said that health care providers and state clinical laboratories are required to report the cases of the eight pathogens monitored by Foodnet, so that the reports will continue “independently of changes to the food network”.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has said that it will have to reduce active surveillance activities for certain pathogens if funding is reduced in 2026.
