“Despite what the current HHS administration believes, ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away,” public health and veterinary consultant Gail Hansen told the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in August 2025.
“States do not have the ability to coordinate information and data across states, and this cut will bring us back to a time before FoodNet.”
The administration has defended the change as reducing duplicative efforts and said foodborne pathogen investigations are not impacted.
“Narrowing FoodNet’s reporting requirements is, in part, because the surveillance landscape has changed since the collaboration began in 1995,” said a CDC website updated in April.
“Today, other surveillance systems monitor for infection with FoodNet pathogens.”
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A reporter for The Guardian reached out to HHS for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
