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U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers working on ways to make powdered infant formula safer were told earlier this month they’d be let go, just weeks after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed to make the newborn staple healthier.

Kennedy announced what he dubbed Operation Stork Speed last month to scrutinize infant formula ingredients and increase testing for heavy metals. Two weeks later, about 15 of 20 workers in the FDA’s Division of Food Processing Science and Technology in Illinois were told their jobs were being eliminated, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. The cuts included about six workers focused on reducing contamination in powdered infant formula.

The research was started after infant deaths linked to a bacteria called Cronobacter sakazakii led to nationwide formula shortages in 2022, the person said. Abbott Laboratories shut down a Michigan factory after FDA inspectors found Cronobacter in the plant, leading to an interruption in the nation’s supply.

HHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FDA researchers are part of a consortium called the Institute for Food Safety and Health, which also includes workers from the Illinois Institute of Technology and the food industry.

Brian Schaneberg, executive director of the Institute for Food Safety and Health, said the group was examining whether it could continue some of the work, though FDA projects are currently suspended. The program, which has had an agreement to work with the agency since 1988, is supposed to receive $3.9 million in FDA funding through the end of August, he said. It’s unclear whether it will be subsequently renewed, he said.

“We’re very concerned,” Schaneberg said. “It’s not just infant formula. I think the entire food supply is going to be impacted.”

The FDA staff who were cut ensured 200 state and federal laboratories around the country could adequately test for heavy metals and other toxic elements in food and infant formula, Schaneberg said. They also worked to detect bird flu in milk when needed, he said.

The researchers also examined how Cronobacter and salmonella, another potentially dangerous bacteria for infants, could evade sterilization efforts and survive in infant formula, according to the person familiar with the staff eliminations. They were also developing new ways to kill the bacteria during manufacturing and determine the ideal water temperature for making a bottle to prevent bacteria from reactivating, the person said.

The researchers were working to apply similar techniques to powdered baby food, such as cereals, the person said.

The staff terminations follow the Trump administration’s disbanding of a joint FDA and Agriculture Department committee last month that studied which infants have the highest risk of Cronobacter infection, The New York Times reported.

The FDA staff in Illinois thought they might be safe from the federal government’s workforce cuts given Kennedy’s interest in infant formula, the person said. Instead, they’ve been put on administrative leave until June 2 and then will no longer work for the agency, the person said.

(Rachel Cohrs Zhang contributed to this report.)

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