MAHA’s First 100 Days
The Trump Administration and its internal MAHA cohort this week celebrated a variety of “accomplishments” spawning from their first 100 days in office.
However, just down the street from the White House, at the Institute of Food Technologist (IFT)’s Food Policy Impact conference, the tone was less than celebratory. There, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials – both past and present – detailed novel threats to the industry created via haphazard announcements and executive actions.
Leadership of FDA Past: Former FDA Human Food Deputy Commissioner Jim Jones (who resigned over DOGE’s staff cuts in February) spoke about how many recent changes executed under Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s watch run counter to his stated goals. Such as…
- Indiscriminate layoffs targeting probationary employees, who, as Jones put it, “have the most recent education” and haven’t yet “bought into old ways.” These individuals are, ironically, the least rooted in the bureaucracy Trump officials want to dismantle, he said.
- Despite his vocal advocacy for “radical transparency” in the food system, initial cuts under Kennedy’s watch virtually eliminated the agency’s communications and administrative staff (i.e. the people in charge of facilitating “radical transparency”).
- Those cuts also hit chemical safety researchers (read: those in charge of studying the inputs Kennedy claims as harmful to health and recently ordered their removal from food use).
Leadership of FDA Present: Mark Hartman, Director of Office for Food Chemical Safety, Dietary Supplements and Innovation (who joined the agency just five months ago after nearly 30 years at the EPA), said the FDA is currently “climbing a vertical learning curve,” as it works to “assimilate new and emerging priorities into the work that we do every day.”
Hartman also highlighted the FDA’s recently completed reorganization, which took place prior to the change in administrations. While he said it is an exciting time for food regulation – particularly under his offices which span pre- and post-market reviews, GRAS notification and new innovations like biotech and cell-grown proteins – it’s also challenging.
- “The speed and the rate at which the change has occurred since the new administration has taken its role has been unprecedented in my experience.”
- Those changes include an announcement to phase out all synthetic, petroleum-based food dyes. There’s no clear plan on how to do that yet, however, Hartman said.
Leadership of FDA Future: Well, that’s one very large, bolded question mark. While continued uncertainty is all we have for certain, Jones stated there’s “zero” chance the administration is able to execute its food dye removal plan by its stated, desired deadline. The future of the “GRAS loophole” is also unlikely to change significantly without significant statutory action, he said.
Hartman Doubles Down: “We’ve been coping with a lot of change in the Human Foods Program… [and] look forward to embracing that change and trying to ride with the wave, instead of being sucked under the waves and sent out to the ocean.”
