CDC Slashes FoodNet Surveillance From Eight Foodborne Pathogens to Two
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has made major cuts to its Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) surveillance program, citing inadequate funding.
According to a CDC spokesperson who talked to NBC News, as of July 1, surveillance under FoodNet has been reduced from eight to two foodborne pathogens, now only covering Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and Salmonella.
Before July, FoodNet covered six additional pathogens that are significant to food safety and public health: Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria monocytogenes, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia.
According to CDC’s latest estimates, which were informed in part by FoodNet data, Campylobacter alone caused 1.9 million cases of foodborne illness in the U.S. in 2019—beating out both Salmonella and STEC.
Additionally, although L. monocytogenes, another nixed pathogen, typically causes fewer cases (1,250 cases in 2019) than other pathogens, listeriosis can be quite deadly. For example, in 2024, a national listeriosis outbreak linked to Boar’s Head deli meats resulted in ten deaths out of 61 cases of illness.
The recent cuts to FoodNet may compromise public health officials’ ability to recognize when cases of illness related to a certain pathogen begin to rise, hindering foodborne illness outbreak response. Accurate analysis of trends over time may also be impacted.
FoodNet is a joint effort between CDC, the U.S. Food and Health Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and ten state health departments. Although state health departments are no longer required to surveil for the six pathogens cut from FoodNet, they can continue to conduct surveillance for those pathogens on their own, if they so choose.
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For instance, the Maryland Health Department told NBC News it would continue reporting for all eight pathogens regardless of changes to FoodNet. On the other hand, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said it would need to scale back surveillance for some pathogens if funding is decreased in Fiscal Year 2026.
Barbara Kowalcyk, Director of the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University, told NBC News that the federal budget for food safety has not kept up with the cost of inflation, and that Trump Administration cuts to federal funding for state health departments have most likely made it harder to maintain FoodNet surveillance.
“Although FoodNet will narrow its focus to Salmonella and STEC, it will maintain both its infrastructure and the quality it has come to represent,” the CDC spokesperson told NBC News. “Narrowing FoodNet’s reporting requirements and associated activities will allow FoodNet staff to prioritize core activities.”
The spokesperson also said that other systems, such as the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System and the Listeria Initiative, still conduct national surveillance for the six pathogens that were removed from FoodNet. However, food safety experts told NBC News that FoodNet is the only surveillance system that actively looks for multiple foodborne diseases at the federal level—other federal surveillance systems are passive and rely on notification of cases from state health departments.
At the same time, CDC said in a list of talking points given to the Connecticut Public Health Department that “Funding has not kept pace with the resources required to maintain the continuation of FoodNet surveillance for all eight pathogens.”
