08/26/2026
dw about it 😮💨
Frozen blueberries flagged for a “reasonable probability of death” are just the latest entry in an unprecedented wave of high-risk food recalls sweeping the country this year. The FDA confirmed nearly 60,000 pounds of frozen blueberries were recalled for potential Listeria monocytogenes contamination, with the agency upgrading it in February to a Class I recall, its highest classification, meaning there is a reasonable probability that use of or exposure to the product would cause serious adverse health consequences or death. It followed a separate Class I recall earlier in 2025 for organic blueberries tied to Listeria concerns, along with recalls spanning iceberg lettuce, shell eggs, mixed berries, and pistachio nut butter.
The surge comes as food safety experts point directly to staffing cuts at the agencies responsible for catching contamination before it reaches consumers. According to Office of Personnel Management data, the FDA lost 3,859 employees in fiscal year 2025 and another 473 in fiscal year 2026, while the CDC lost roughly 2,900 combined over the same period, following a March 2025 announcement from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that HHS would cut 3,500 positions from the FDA alone, a 20 percent reduction that included more than 170 staff from the agency’s Office of Inspections and Investigations. Some of the eliminated positions were lab scientists responsible for testing food samples and communications staff tasked with alerting the public to urgent recalls.
The consequences are already visible in the numbers, with a Cyclospora outbreak tied to lettuce becoming the third largest foodborne illness outbreak in American history, with nearly 10,000 confirmed cases, as lab testing for the parasite was suspended for months amid the cuts. Compounding the problem, the FDA’s own data shows it employed just 443 food safety inspectors in 2024 to oversee 36,600 food facilities nationwide, far short of the roughly 1,500 the agency says it actually needs, while proposed fiscal 2026 budget cuts would shrink food-safety staffing and lab operations even further.
