The run-up to the midterm elections is turning into a food fight — literally.
The summer was marred by a massive foodborne outbreak that sickened scores of people and the recall of tens of thousands of pounds of imported meat, turning the safety of the U.S. food supply into a topic of national conversation and a political cause.
Late-night talk show hosts joked about symptoms that included explosive diarrhea. As a precaution, chain restaurants such as Chipotle and Taco Bell yanked lettuce, jalapeños, and other suspected products from menus. Some food safety scientists blamed the outbreaks on federal cuts to public health.
These dynamics collectively have raised questions about whether it’s safe to order a salad or burger.
Democrats have come out on the offensive, saying voters worried about the safety of the U.S. food supply should oust Republicans in the midterm elections. The Trump administration has countered by accusing Democrats of scaremongering over food safety to score political points.
The political fracas reflects the toll that large-scale outbreaks have had on the public psyche. Midterm voters have long cared about pocketbook issues such as grocery prices, but the spate of recalls has them worried about whether the food they’re buying is safe to eat — and political leaders are paying attention.
The outbreak linked to cyclospora in lettuce led to almost 20,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of illness from May through August, compared with 1,180 cases during the same span in 2025, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That makes it the largest recorded outbreak of the parasite.
“One of the reasons food safety is in the news this year, and people have been rightfully concerned, is the combination of high-profile restaurant names and the absolute colossal number of illnesses,” said Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog director with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, or PIRG, an advocacy group, referring to a recent cyclosporiasis outbreak. “It’s thousands of people. It makes it more real.”
Data shows there have been about 200 food recalls so far in 2026, which is about on par with the number at this time last year, according to PIRG data.
Following the Numbers
A majority of registered voters have little or no confidence in government oversight of food safety, with Democrats far more likely than Republicans to doubt the protections in place, according to a July survey by Quinnipiac University. Ninety-four percent of U.S. adults indicated they were concerned about the frequency of food recalls in a poll by GS1 US, a data standards organization.
The share of consumers who strongly agree that the U.S. food system produces food that’s safe to eat declined to about 30% in August, from 40% in November, based on survey data released in September by the University of Illinois and Purdue University.
Democrats have jumped at the chance to repeat criticisms of President Donald Trump’s budget cuts and priorities.
The Democratic National Committee recently posted a list of recalled food items on social media while calling Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a “complete disaster” who must resign.
“Trump is dismantling our government — and it’s harming people,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posted Sept. 2 on the social platform X, adding: “Slashed food safety agencies → cyclospora outbreak.” Just weeks earlier, she had written to Kennedy demanding answers for what she described as the administration’s “failed response” and its connection to political contributions.
Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.) posted Sept. 5 on X: “I’m calling on Trump to stop gutting the FDA & restore its inspectors. We deserve safe food.”
The campaign for Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) posted Sept. 5 on X: “Trump is cutting our food safety funding and workforce, and we have seen far too many food recalls this summer.”
But the number of recalls doesn’t tell the whole story.
While recalls aren’t markedly up this year compared with 2025, they are up over a broader time span. The country saw 320 food recalls by the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2025, up from 296 in 2024, according to PIRG.
The total number of recalls grew 21% from 2021 to 2025, based on an analysis by Trace One, a provider of regulatory guidance software. A rise in Class I recalls, which are the highest priority because the products could cause serious illness or death, drove much of the increase.
But recall numbers can be misleading. For starters, federal agencies do not publicize all recalls, especially if products are no longer on the market. Recall data itself is suspect because a single contaminated food can result in multiple recalls if the item is incorporated into processed food or other products.
A far better measure is the number of people sickened, epidemiologists say. And this summer’s specific multistate outbreak from cyclospora was exceptional, affecting people in 21 states.
When it comes to bacterial contamination of food — which is more common and includes E. coli, listeria, and salmonella — the overall trend points to outbreaks in which fewer people are falling ill. That’s a promising sign, some food safety leaders say, although the CDC says an estimated 48 million people each year in the U.S. experience foodborne illness.
“That’s an indication we’re finding more outbreaks and finding more when they are smaller and limiting the extent to which they can get bigger,” said Craig Hedberg, a public health professor at the University of Minnesota and leader in food safety surveillance.
Still, the perception that the food supply is riskier has been enough to ignite political rancor.
The FDA recently asserted on X that recalls for fiscal year 2026 are among the lowest levels recorded in over a decade, stating, “Don’t believe the fake news.” It included a chart that showed recalls dropping to 1,836 in fiscal 2026 from almost 4,000 in fiscal year 2013.
On the same day, HHS senior adviser Calley Means doubled down on the claim, posting on X that Kennedy is doing so well that Democratic operatives are slamming the FDA for doing its job by conducting food recalls.
“It makes sense that these craven, disingenuous attacks are all these influencers have,” he wrote.
But some food safety experts question the numbers, noting that the agency’s recall totals cover a range of products. The tally also includes drugs and medical devices, based on an analysis of the posted data by Susan Mayne, who was director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition from 2015 to 2023. Some food safety leaders say it’s misleading to imply that food safety recalls have declined if the data the claim is based on includes recalls not related to food.
“This HHS assertion appears to be based on incorrect data,” Mayne said on LinkedIn, a job-oriented social networking site.
It’s About More Than Recalls
Food safety has occasionally taken center stage in politics. In 1993, for example, an E. coli outbreak traced to Jack in the Box fast-food outlets pressured newly inaugurated President Bill Clinton to make it an agenda item at his first Cabinet meeting. His administration wound up adopting a new approach focused on preventing foodborne illness and credited with drastically reducing E. coli infections.
Concern about food safety has especially taken hold now, public health leaders say, because the administration is portraying itself as a safety crusader while cutting staffing and funding for federal agencies responsible for surveillance and inspection.
“There’s a level of hypocrisy from the administration when they promise to make our food safer and then eviscerate the agencies and programs that detect and prevent outbreaks,” said Sarah Sorscher, regulatory affairs director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The FDA continues to have the staff required for outbreak investigations, and no FDA investigators were affected by staffing changes or reductions in force, HHS spokesperson Grace Davis Jamison said in an email.
The CDC lab supporting foodborne outbreak investigations also was not impacted by reductions in force, she said, and the agency maintains a dedicated team investigating foodborne outbreaks and working closely with state and local health departments.
“The Trump Administration has mounted a robust response to each outbreak, working closely with health departments in all 50 states and leading the public health response by promptly identifying known sources and providing Americans with the information they need to protect themselves,” she said.
The administration’s initiatives risk weakening food safety protections. Trump in late August said he would take action to make it easier for small livestock operations to slaughter and process their own meat, raising concerns among food safety leaders that the change could allow inadequately inspected beef to enter the food system.
Trump also announced the U.S. would import more beef from Argentina and Brazil, despite concerns about inspections and safety. The European Union has implemented a ban on Brazilian beef imports because of noncompliance with food safety and antibiotic use.
The administration withdrew a proposed Biden-era rule that would have stopped the sale of raw turkey and chicken containing high levels of salmonella. And it said it would delay compliance with a rule requiring grocery stores and companies to trace food in their supply chains, allowing for quick removal in cases of contamination. Implementation, originally set for Jan. 20 of this year, would instead occur in July 2028.
The actions came after hearing concerns from stakeholders about the time needed to comply, Davis Jamison said.
Some food safety leaders say the administration should do more to prevent foodborne illnesses, saying that failing to direct more resources into preventing problems makes it harder for Kennedy’s campaign to encourage people to eat more fresh foods.
In fact, almost half of consumers changed their habits regarding which groceries they bought and 40% modified purchases at restaurants in the past month due to foodborne illness concerns, according to the survey by the University of Illinois and Purdue University. Concerns about foodborne illness exposure via fresh vegetables increased in August compared with feedback from the previous two years.
“If you want people to eat real food, fresh fruits and vegetables, they have to be safe,” said Sandra Eskin, chief executive at Stop Foodborne Illness, a nonprofit public health organization. “Instead, we have had farmers plowing under fields because people aren’t buying lettuce.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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