The CDC Quietly Scaled Back A Surveillance Program For Foodborne Illnesses

A federal-state partnership that monitors for foodborne illnesses quietly scaled back its operations nearly two months ago.

As of July 1, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) program has reduced surveillance to just two pathogens: salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told NBC News.

Before July, the program had been tracking infections caused by six additional pathogens: campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia. Some of them can lead to severe or life-threatening illnesses, particularly for newborns and people who are pregnant or have weakened immune systems.

Monitoring for the six pathogens is no longer required for the 10 states that participate in the program, though those states aren’t precluded from conducting surveillance on their own.

Food safety experts worry that the move, which hasn’t previously been made public, could make it harder for public health officials to understand how common foodborne illnesses are or notice whether cases are rising.

“Essentially, CDC is backing off on one of their best surveillance systems,” said Dr. J. Glenn Morris, director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida. Morris, a former Agriculture Department official, was instrumental in helping create FoodNet in 1995.

FoodNet is a collaboration among the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture Department and 10 state health departments. Its surveillance area covers roughly 54 million people, or 16% of the U.S. population. The network includes Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee and select counties in California and New York.

FoodNet is the only surveillance system that actively looks for multiple foodborne diseases at the federal level, according to food safety experts. Other federal surveillance systems are passive, meaning the CDC relies on state health departments to notify it of cases.

Experts worry that without active surveillance of all eight pathogens, public health officials won’t be able to adequately compare trends over time or notice whether cases of a particular illness start rising. Experts also worry that scaling back FoodNet’s operations could make it harder to quickly identify and respond to outbreaks.