JUST IN: Top FDA Official Resigns

Jim Jones, head of the food division at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has submitted his resignation.

“The division is tasked with ensuring that the country’s food supply is safe, overseeing inspections and recalls,” NBC News noted.

According to reports, Jones cited “indiscriminate” layoffs in the food division as the reason for his departure.

“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,” he wrote in his resignation letter, according to Fox Business.

BREAKING: FDA food chief Jim Jones resigns after President Trump cuts thousands of federal workers. pic.twitter.com/pqSBbuquF5

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 18, 2025

Per Fox Business:

Jones said it would be “fruitless for me to continue in this role” because of the Trump administration’s “disdain for the very people” needed to make the changes it wants.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to Jones’ resignation, saying some “bureaucrats” are resistant to the “mandate delivered by the American people” in an email to Bloomberg News.

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“President Trump is only interested in the best and most qualified people who are also willing to implement his America First Agenda on behalf of the American people,” she told the outlet. “It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay.”

The staffers who lost their jobs over the weekend include employees with “highly technical expertise in nutrition, infant formula, food safety response,” Jones said in his letter, noting that 10 terminated staffers were responsible for reviewing potentially unsafe ingredients in food.

Jones led a successful push to ban red dye No. 3, which had its authorization revoked by the FDA last month while former President Joe Biden was still in office.

#BREAKING: FDA food division head Jim Jones resigns – NBC.

His position is responsible for keeping American food safe.

The resignation comes after RFK Jr. took over the HHS. pic.twitter.com/pQRfEuwlJg

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) February 18, 2025

BREAKING: Jim Jones, head of the FDA’s food division, has resigned pic.twitter.com/SVnZIsS1du

— Resist the Mainstream (@ResisttheMS) February 18, 2025

NBC News reports:

It’s unclear whether Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was sworn in Thursday, has an immediate replacement for Jones. Kennedy met with HHS staff Tuesday morning as part of a welcome ceremony, according to a second source.

Jones stepped in to lead the FDA’s food division in 2023, after three decades at the Environmental Protection Agency.

He most recently oversaw the Biden administration’s ban on the Red No. 3 dye in January, as well as the FDA’s investigation of contaminated applesauce linked to dozens of lead poisoning cases in children in late 2023 and the aftermath of the infant formula shortage.

Congress hasn’t yet confirmed a new FDA chief. President Donald Trump has picked Dr. Marty Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, to lead the agency.

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