“It’s Not the Onions that Stink”

Recordbreaking Outbreak Spotlights Need
for Government Food Safety Overhaul

For Immediate Release Contact: Karen Taylor Mitchell 802-863-0555
November 20, 2025 Nancy Donley 773-419-0128

In Pennsylvania, over 500 people are sick and at least 3 have died from Hepatitis A traced to imported green onions used at Chi Chi’s. The largest known Hepatitis A outbreak in the US, this event revives a number of longstanding concerns about FDA’s oversight of imported foods. For example, what actions were taken after three smaller outbreaks were linked to green onions in September, and why were those actions insufficient to prevent another outbreak from what appears to be the same source? Why was the public not informed earlier about a multi-state pattern? On a larger scale, what will this administration now do to improve a dire food safety track record that continues to spotlight its agencies’ inability to keep food clean?

Onions may be implicated in this history-making outbreak, but it’s not just the onions that stink. What stinks is that the government hasn’t made food safety a priority. It is a profound tragedy that 76 million Americans should continue to fall victim to unsafe meals each year because our government fails to fix the regulatory problems that the government itself has identified. The lack of a single agency that oversees food safety, the need for agencies like FDA and USDA to have the power to directly level civil fines on firms that produce contaminated food, and the fact that agencies like FDA and USDA currently cannot mandate recalls of deadly products are all typical of the prolonged inertia that is making American families sick. Every single day that the government fails to take action on these problems brings consequences that are devastating and deadly. Why does it have to take massive outbreaks like this and the 1993 Jack-in-the Box E. coli tragedy to force attention to this deadly problem? Our hearts go out to the hundreds of victims and families whose lives are being disrupted by these most recent events.