Cyclospora outbreak exposes gaps in FDA's shrinking foreign food inspections

A nationwide cyclospora outbreak linked to contaminated iceberg lettuce has cast a spotlight on a long-running trend: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is inspecting far fewer foreign food facilities than it did before the pandemic.

Agency records show foreign food site inspections, including the Mexican farm implicated in the current outbreak, have fallen nearly 35% since 2019. That year marked an all-time high for such checks before the FDA pulled most field staff during COVID-19. The pandemic triggered a wave of retirements and departures among inspectors that continues today.

Even before the health crisis, the FDA had consistently missed congressionally mandated targets for international inspections. Recent staffing cuts, reorganizations, and other upheavals under the Trump administration could mean even fewer inspections ahead, according to former senior FDA officials.

Michael Rogers, who spent nearly 35 years in FDA inspection roles, said the agency cannot achieve what is required given its responsibilities. "When you look at the numbers of inspections balanced against the responsibility of the FDA — in terms of all the firms domestically and internationally under its oversight — the agency just can't achieve what is required," he said, adding that the FDA continues to do many things "very well with limited resources."

The Trump administration has proposed new approaches, including a pilot program of one-day inspections. Rogers and other officials argue these abbreviated checks are not equivalent to traditional ones, which can take a week or more to document serious problems.

FDA officials have long maintained that inspections are only one tool for overseeing safety. "Inspections will never be the only way to ensure the safety of imported products given the massive volume coming into the country," said Susan Mayne, FDA's former food director now at Yale University. "That's why FDA uses border inspections, importer inspections, sampling and other tools."

However, the current outbreak has exposed the downsides of those approaches. In July, regulators retracted a faulty test result that had claimed to find cyclospora on a sample of Taylor Farms' lettuce at the border. Despite the error, FDA officials say they are confident the company's farm is the source of the parasite. Mexican food authorities, however, report no positive samples or other red flags there.

FDA inspectors arrived at the Taylor Farms site in Guanajuato, Mexico, in mid-August — about a month after the recall was announced on July 17. It was their first visit since 2019. Foreign food inspections fell another 17% to 1,140 in fiscal year 2025 from the prior year.

While inspectors were not among the 3,500 jobs targeted for termination, the agency eliminated more than half the staffers handling travel bookings, leaving inspectors to manage their own flights and lodging.

Food experts say the four-week delay in getting inspectors on-site was too long given the outbreak's scale. "It took us too long to get boots on the ground," said Frank Yiannas, former top food safety official at the FDA. "When these outbreaks happen in fresh produce, you have to respond quickly because these are very complex and changing ecosystems."

The Taylor Farms recall involved thousands of packaged salad products shipped to major U.S. restaurant chains, including Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC.

Washington has tried before to overhaul the food safety system. The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011, passed after deadly outbreaks involving spinach and cantaloupe, set aggressive goals for FDA foreign inspections — targets the agency has never met. The law calls for inspecting more than 19,000 international food sites annually; the FDA hit an all-time high of 1,700 in 2019, less than one-tenth of the target.

Former regulators say the 19,000 target is unachievable and has never been properly funded by Congress, which has left the FDA's food budget essentially flat for years. The Government Accountability Office has noted the FDA has not identified an appropriate annual target.

Recruiting and retaining inspectors remains a major challenge. The FDA's food inspection workforce includes more than 420 staffers, with 10% to 15% of positions chronically unfilled. Inspectors working internationally can spend half their time traveling, a grueling schedule that drives turnover.

"Until you can better incentivize people to stay in those positions, I think the agency is going to continue to see high attrition, younger and less experienced investigators," said Rogers. "That ultimately may impact FDA's ability to enhance and increase inspections."

Experts suggest new approaches, including machine learning and remote monitoring, could help. "We have to rethink how we oversee the safety of foreign producers," Yiannas said. "We can't use the same approaches and limited tools that we've used for the past 30 years."

The 2011 law also called for bar codes on each batch of produce for quick tracing during contamination. The rule, delayed repeatedly after industry pushback, was supposed to take effect in January but was postponed again.

"There's widespread acknowledgment that these are complex issues, but when you have 17 years to prepare for a final exam you should be able to pass it," said Brian Ronholm, a former Department of Agriculture official now with Consumer Reports.