State lawmakers chew on possible food safety updates for Virginia in wake of federal cuts

Since taking his post in President Donald Trump’s cabinet, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spearheaded a national movement to “make America healthy again,” including a plan to phase out synthetic dyes from foods, which have been linked to adverse effects in children. Virginia lawmakers also worked on a law to ban synthetic dyes from foods in public schools that Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed this spring.

But cuts to the federal agencies responsible for food regulation are alarming, state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Chesterfield, and Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, said on a call Wednesday, and work against the food safety and the public health goals Kennedy has professed. 

The Food and Drug Administration, Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention play key roles in regulating the nation’s food supply — from packaged products like baby formula, to produce, to animal products like meat and eggs. Entities like the FDA and USDA ensure consumer protection through inspections, while the CDC  investigates sources of foodborne illness outbreaks. From there, the Department of Justice can prosecute those responsible for related mistakes, if needed. 

But in recent months a DOJ unit that handles such cases was disbanded, several data-tracking divisions of CDC have been cut, a President Joe Biden-era rule limiting salmonella levels in raw poultry has been withdrawn, and two USDA food safety advisory committees were dismantled. The cuts are part of overall shrinking efforts spearheaded by Trump advisor Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and hamper transparency concerning food safety, Hashmi said. 

She cited a Washington Post report about an Indiana boy who nearly died after eating a salad due to an E. coli outbreak that had been traced last fall but not publicly disclosed since Trump’s administration took office. 

A lawsuit against the grower of the lettuce in the salad filed by the boy’s parents last month said the bacteria affecting the child was a match to the strain that killed a person and sickened about 90 people in 15 states last fall. Federal health agencies then investigated the cases and linked them to a farm that grew romaine lettuce. A February 2025 internal FDA memo linked a single lettuce producer and ranch as the contamination source, but officials never issued public recommendations or identified the grower after the investigation.   

“The FDA, under the Trump and RFK administration, have decided not to name names or make the public aware of the dangers. The parents deserve and we deserve accountability,” Hashmi said.

Meanwhile, one of the two FDA committees that were dismantled had been tasked with reviewing the regulatory process in the wake of a deadly Listeria outbreak in a Virginia-based Boar’s Head facility that occurred last year. 

After highlighting these challenges,  Hashmi and Sickles laid out their ideas for actions state lawmakers could take. 

Both suggested legislators pursue updates to Virginia law that could constitute  state-level food regulations. As chair of the Senate’s Education and Health committee, Hashmi said she’s already pursuing similar measures when it comes to special education standards in Virginia to “fill gaps” created at the federal level. 

But Sarah Sorscher, a regulatory affairs director with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, emphasized that even if states like Virginia pursue state-level regulations, the nature of interstate food supply chains means there would still be gaps in consumer protections. 

“We can’t rely on states to take care of issues, because food could be coming in, being served to Virginia consumers that’s made in other states that have weaker protections,” Sorscher said. “So that’s sort of a failure of using the state system to address food safety.”

Still, Sickles thinks there are strategies Virginia could explore to bolster consumer protections when it comes to food safety. He said that state legislators haven’t been as hands-on because of federal oversight on the matter, but that he now plans to keep a closer eye on the issue, and wants his 139 colleagues in the General Assembly to do the same.

As chair of the House of Delegates’ Health and Human Services committee, Sickles is planning a July “boot camp” gathering that will focus on social services and the state’s health department. 

“We need to spend more time looking more closely into areas like this and we than we ever have before our committee,” Sickles explained.

This article first appeared on Virginia Mercury and is republished here with permission. Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence.