FDA Suspends Key Milk Safety Program—What This Means For You

The Food and Drug Administration has paused a quality control program for testing milk and other dairy products, Reuters reported on Monday.

The media outlet obtained an internal email from the FDA’s Division of Dairy Safety that said the agency was suspending its proficiency testing program for Grade “A” raw milk and finished products.

To be considered grade A, liquid milk, cheese, yogurt, and other dairy products must come from farms and plants that meet certain safety standards.

The FDA initiated the suspension because the Moffett Center Proficiency Testing Laboratory, an FDA lab that oversees food safety, can no longer provide lab “support for proficiency testing and data analysis,” Reuters reported. This comes after the firing and departure of about 20,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA.

An FDA spokesperson told Health that the quality control program—called the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) Proficiency Testing Program—will resume once it’s transferred to another FDA lab, but they did not provide a timeline for when that would happen.

“In the meantime, state and federal labs continue to analyze food samples, and FDA remains committed to working with states to protect the safety of the pasteurized milk supply,” the FDA spokesperson said.

The proficiency testing pause follows other suspensions this month of programs that ensured accurate testing for bird flu in milk and cheese, and for pathogens, such as the parasite Cyclospora, in other food products, according to Reuters.

Despite the FDA’s assurances, the suspensions have raised concerns among food safety experts about the agency’s ability to oversee the dairy industry.

“There has been no change in the regulations, so companies are still required to carry out all the same pasteurization processes they have been doing previously,” Donald W. Schaffner, PhD, department chair, professor, and extension specialist in Food Science at Rutgers University, told Health in an email. 

“What this change does mean is that there will be less government oversight and we will know less about the safety of the food supply,” he said.

So, what does the proficiency testing program really do? And should you stop consuming dairy while it’s paused? Here’s what you need to know.

The Food Emergency Response Network was developed in 2004 to coordinate and prepare the nation’s food testing labs for emergencies involving contamination and foodborne illness outbreaks. FERN’s Proficiency Testing Program ensures the accuracy of about 170 food safety labs in the network.

“Proficiency testing programs are basically designed to ensure that a laboratory is able to properly detect the compounds or agents that it’s trying to detect,” Schaffner said.

The proficiency testing also ensures that labs can accurately quantify how much of the pathogen is present in the milk when it is there.

“It’s really important that, if we have an emergency, we can trust the results coming out of these laboratories,” Schaffner said. “In an emergency, the last thing you want to worry about is whether you can trust lab results.”

This is especially important when it comes to milk, said Lewis Ziska, PhD, associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, who worked at the USDA for more than 20 years.

The sugar and protein in milk provide nutrients that allow bacteria and pathogens to grow. “Milk is a pretty good medium for everything from E. coli to Clostridium,” Ziska told Health.

According to the FDA spokesperson, milk and dairy are still being safety tested in state and federal labs. However, the lack of oversight from the Proficiency Testing Program concerns some food safety experts.

“Suspending the program does not inherently make dairy products less safe, but what it does do is reduce our confidence in the knowledge that they are safe,” Schaffner said.

While the suspension is “disappointing,” Schaffner said he does not plan to change his dairy consumption in response to the news. Other food safety experts agreed.

“Dairy facilities continue to be inspected, and milk continues to be tested by regulatory authorities as required by the PMO (Pasteurized Milk Ordinance), which ensured milk safety for more than 100 years, long before the FERN Proficiency Testing Program,” Zeynep Ustunol, PhD, a professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University, told Health in an email.

Experts still had several tips for consumers to ensure the safety of their milk and dairy products. First, Ustunol recommended avoiding raw milk and opting for pasteurized milk. You can even pasteurize your milk at home by heating it to 145°F for 30 minutes, Ustunol said.

Ultra-pasteurized milk may be the safest option at the moment, Ziska said. It’s heated at a higher temperature than pasteurized milk, killing nearly all bacteria. 

If bacteria do grow in milk, Ziska said they will produce byproducts that have a “rancid” odor, which you can check by smelling or tasting the milk. However, you won’t be able to smell or taste certain pathogens, such as E. coli or Listeria.

If you’d like to err on the safe side, you can avoid dairy products altogether while the quality testing is paused, but experts did not think this was necessary.