A top official at the US Food and Drug Administration has resigned in protest over mass layoffs ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration, which have seen thousands of federal employees dismissed across multiple agencies.
Jim Jones, who joined the FDA in 2023 and led efforts to ban a food dye linked to cancer, said in a letter seen by Bloomberg News that the termination of 89 staff members in the food division would seriously undermine the agency’s ability to carry out Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda of improving Americans’ diets.
“I was looking forward to working to pursue the department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,” Jones wrote. However, he said, the administration’s disdain for the very people needed to implement these goals made it fruitless for him to continue in this role.
Jones’s resignation was first reported by industry publication Food Fix. His departure is part of a broader wave of federal job cuts spearheaded by Elon Musk’s newly established Department of Government Efficiency. The initiative has aggressively targeted employees still within their probationary period, which lasts at least a year.
Last week, AFP reported that nearly half of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s elite team of epidemiologists, known as “disease detectives,” were also dismissed. Public health experts have warned that such cuts could pose serious risks, particularly as concerns mount over a potential bird flu outbreak in humans.
Jones, who previously worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, recently oversaw the FDA’s ban on Red Dye No. 3, a food colouring long associated with cancer in animals but still widely used in US food products.
Health Secretary Kennedy made food industry reform a key part of his “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, pushing for bans on harmful chemicals, stricter labelling laws, and measures to combat the nation’s obesity crisis.
