Annie Burns-Pieper, CTV News, April 13, 2025
Canadian health experts warn the fallout from thousands of job cuts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on April 1 could disrupt the flow of safety information on drugs, medical devices, and food to Canada.
For years, Canadian agencies responsible for monitoring food and pharmaceutical safety have worked closely with regulators around the world. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vast resources and global influence have played a role in informing decisions in Canada on issues such as safety warnings and recalls of dangerous foods and drugs from the market.
However, sweeping changes to the FDA since U.S. President Donald Trump took office could impact the benefits Canada derives from this historic collaboration, reducing the quality and availability of information about harmful drugs and food products—potentially allowing serious health risks to go undetected and products to remain on the market longer.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), now headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., laid off 10,000 workers as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency task force. The department plans to cut 3,500 jobs directly from the FDA.
A ‘huge problem’
While a memo on the restructuring claimed that layoffs wouldn’t affect reviewers or inspectors of drugs, medical devices, or food, reporting in the U.S. revealed that these areas are being impacted. Reported job losses include lab scientists who tested food for contaminants including deadly bacteria, scientists at drug safety labs, and staff in the drug inspections and investigations office, among many others.
“I think this is a huge, huge problem,” said Matthew Herder, a professor of law and medicine at Dalhousie University who specializes in regulation of pharmaceuticals. He told CTVNews.ca in an interview that Canada has long benefited from the FDA’s size and reach.
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Canada has historically benefited from U.S. post-market surveillance—the ongoing monitoring of drugs and medical devices after they’ve been approved—to detect safety issues that may not have surfaced during clinical trials. “They just have vastly more resources,” said Herder. “The chances of us picking up something before the U.S. are very slim.”
For example, in 2017, Health Canada issued a safety review and letter to health professionals for commonly used antibiotics, fluoroquinolones, following a review by the FDA, warning of a potential risk of “disabling side effects” from tendonitis or nerve damage.
In 2019, Health Canada recalled surgical mesh for transvaginal repair of pelvic organ prolapse following a U.S. recall. Canadian women had reported debilitating side effects, including urinary problems, mobility challenges, emotional distress, and discomfort during sex associated with this medical device.
Diana Zuckerman, the president of The National Center for Health Research in Washington, D.C, called the staff cuts at the FDA a disaster: “you can’t cut 20% of their staff and think it’s not going to have a tremendous impact.”
She said in an interview with CTVNews.ca that post-market surveillance is already under-resourced and worries it will be weakened further by the cuts.
Herder said less surveillance of approved drugs is particularly concerning given the trend in recent years of letting more drugs into the market with less evidence. “If we’re losing the oversight that the FDA offers globally or losing even the percentage of it, that is really terrifying.”
CTVNews.ca asked Health Canada, responsible for drug and medical device safety, about the concerns raised by experts that a diminished FDA could pose risks to Canadians, but the agency declined to comment.
Canadian outbreaks could ‘go totally unnoticed’
Canada has also long collaborated with American agencies for food safety. Keith Warriner is a food safety professor in the Department of Food Science at the University of Guelph. Despite the Buy Canadian movement, he believes imports from the U.S. will continue to be a significant source of food in Canada.
He said American agencies, including the FDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the United States Department of Agriculture, have been particularly good at surveillance, and Canadians have benefited from information sharing.
“When an outbreak occurs, they’re pretty hot on it. In Canada, we could get outbreaks that go totally unnoticed,” Warriner told CTVNews.ca. Often recalls and alerts originate with American products and are adopted in Canada, meaning that a delayed response in the U.S. could also impact Canadian consumers.
His biggest concern about the changes to the FDA is that the U.S. might reduce food safety surveillance, and “if they cut back on that, then it’d be outbreaks running rampant.” He suspects the deep cuts will lead to fewer recalls due to a decrease in outbreak detection.
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Dr. Joel Lexchin is concerned that, given the climate of U.S.-Canada relations, pharmaceutical information sharing could be reduced. The retired emergency room doctor and a former professor at York University who has been researching pharmaceutical policy in Canada for more than 40 years told CTVNews.ca, “if the FDA keeps data to itself, unsafe products may remain on the Canadian market for longer than they currently do.”
He would like to know how the historically collaborative relationship between the FDA and Health Canada is currently operating and how Health Canada plans to fill in any gaps left by potential changes in information sharing.
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To read the entire article in CTV News, click here https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/amid-deep-cuts-to-the-us-fda-experts-warn-canadians-could-lose-vital-safety-information/