The Trump administration disbanded two independent food safety committees without warning this week, ending ongoing research into an outbreak of bacteria in powdered infant formula and an upcoming investigation into the spread of listeria in deli meats.
The Department of Agriculture ordered the members of the two advisory committees — the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection — to immediately stop all work on Thursday.
Members of the microbiological committee received an email late Wednesday asking them to join a meeting midday Thursday, which is when they were informed the committee would be disbanded, said Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumer Reports who attended the meeting. Very few members were able to join because of the last-minute nature of the gathering, he said, leaving just a small subset of the committee to learn in-person about the termination.