Plenty of Americans spent this past summer on the toilet thanks to the so-called diarrhea lettuce outbreak that sickened tens of thousands, hospitalized at least 570 and killed two people. The cyclosporiasis outbreak was linked to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms at a facility in Mexico that was last inspected seven years ago, according to a damning new report from the Washington Post.

The FDA is tasked with conducting inspections of foreign facilities to ensure that the food being imported is safe to eat. The Washington Post reports that there were already long term issues plaguing the agency’s ability to inspect food in other countries, but it’s gotten so much worse ever since billionaire Elon Musk took a chainsaw to the federal government in 2025 with his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The FDA’s foreign food inspections plummeted during the covid-19 pandemic, recovered in 2023, then dropped sharply again thanks to DOGE. The Post found that the FDA conducted just 1,024 foreign food inspections in 2025, just 5% of the quota set by Congress.

In June of this year, the FDA conducted about 84 inspections, according to the newspaper’s analysis of a one-year rolling average, compared to 103 inspections in June 2024. There were 154 inspections in June 2019.

Again, the Post is quick to note that this is a long term problem that can’t be solely blamed on DOGE. Funding for food safety hasn’t be a priority for Congress, though President Barack Obama signed legislation in 2011 that was supposed to increase food inspections.

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