The Department of Health and Human Services is requesting $72 million for food safety efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in fiscal year 2026.
The request is a relatively small portion of the $94.7 billion for HHS requested in President Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget. The total 2026 budget proposal for the CDC is $4.243 billion, down from the $9.683 billion request for fiscal year 2025.
In the 133-page budget request for the CDC, the overseeing health department mentions “food safety” only six times. Food safety is the smallest slice of the Administration’s CDC budget request pie.
While the budget request touts the food safety responsibilities of the CDC, it makes no mention of recent staffing cuts to the agency. It also repeatedly cites how previous years’ budgets fell short of meeting the agency’s needs for food safety.
“CDC has a unique role in detecting and investigating foodborne illnesses and outbreaks and attributing them to specific foods and settings,” according to the budget request.
“CDC’s network of food safety surveillance is the only source of enteric disease human illness data in all of the U.S. government. CDC’s goals for reducing foodborne illness include reducing the size, scope, and severity of foodborne outbreaks, including rapid detection of outbreaks caused by priority pathogens; improving molecular surveillance systems that rapidly detect and characterize foodborne pathogens; and work with partners in preventing and responding to them.”
The budget request outlines the responsibilities of the CDC and its work related to foodborne illness. According to the budget request, in fiscal year 2026 the CDC will continue to:
• Use whole genome sequencing (WGS) in the PulseNet USA network to identify outbreaks rapidly and better define the reservoirs of bacteria that make foods unsafe. CDC will also support expanded adoption of WGS methods in other countries through PulseNet International to improve detection and control spread before pathogens reach the United States.
• Assess trends in foodborne illness and associated disparities, identify high-risk foods, and evaluate the effectiveness of prevention strategies.
Coordinate with the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health for the application of laboratory technology including genomics, metagenomics, and bioinformatics for outbreak detection and characterization of foodborne bacteria.
The budget request specifically highlights the importance of the PulseNet program.
“Every year, PulseNet prevents approximately 270,000 illnesses and saves at least $500 million in medical costs and lost productivity. For every $1 invested into PulseNet, an estimated $70 is saved,” according to the budget request.
The use of whole genome sequencing (WGS) to help detect and contain foodborne illness outbreaks also got a nod in the budget request.
“The use of WGS has improved CDC’s ability to detect and investigate widespread problems in the food supply,’ according to the budget request.
“In 2024, CDC worked with state, local, territorial, and federal regulatory partners to investigate Salmonella illnesses linked to cantaloupes imported from Mexico. CDC quickly identified the source and used WGS to link this outbreak to an outbreak in Canada, which helped identify additional cases. This investigation led to expanded recalls, limiting the number of illnesses in both countries, and demonstrating the value of lab surveillance networks.”
The budget proposal compliments the CDC’s work during fiscal year 2024 to train laboratory personnel and use laboratory testing, but does not mention how much of that budget will be cut for 2026. Several laboratory staff positions have already been eliminated.
“In FY 2024, CDC trained over 461 public health laboratory personnel in best practices for foodborne disease detection, surveillance, laboratory/whole genome sequencing, pathogen identification, and outbreak investigation and control,” according to the budget request.
“CDC also expanded a pilot of next generation metagenomic sequencing methods, providing training and technical support to nine domestic PulseNet member laboratories. Metagenomic sequencing is critically important to continuing PulseNet surveillance to protect the food supply because of reduced public health access to the samples currently used for WGS. The investment in laboratory capacity building for food safety is key to preparedness and allows the CDC to better protect people and reduce foodborne illnesses.”
The budget request cites staggering figures related to foodborne illness outbreaks and the need to investigate them. But, it does not mention how much money is on the chopping block. It does, however, mention numbers from the fiscal year 2023 budget that show it was not large enough for key targets to be met. The 2026 request says there was a lack of staffing to meet those targets.
“Every year, over 175 multistate clusters of foodborne disease are identified, which, in turn, will need to be investigated to determine if they are outbreaks. Tracking state epidemiologic interview capacity is important to help identify and address challenges in the availability of epidemiologic data critical for multistate foodborne outbreak investigations,” according to the budget request.
“The FY 2023 result of 63 percent of cases interviewed in multistate outbreaks of Salmonella, Listeria, and STEC is below the FY 2023 target of 85 percent. This may indicate a lack of staffing capacity to conduct all interviews due to turnover and difficulty hiring as well as insufficient training once positions have been filled.”
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