FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Resigns Amid Trump’s Layoffs
Jim Jones has resigned from his position as deputy commissioner for human foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Jones’ sudden departure is reportedly in response to President Donald Trump’s “indiscriminate firing” of nearly 90 agency staff members.
“It has been increasingly clear that with the Trump administration’s disdain for the very people necessary to implement your agenda ... it would have been fruitless for me to continue in this role,” Jones said in a letter to the FDA's acting commissioner, seen by The Wall Street Journal.
[RELATED: Leverage Lessons From COVID-19 to Navigate Risks Within Trump’s Tariffs]
Jones said that the Trump administration had fired 89 people in the FDA’s human foods program over the weekend, including staff with expertise in infant formula safety, and 10 workers hired to review potentially unsafe food ingredients.
Jones joined the U.S. FDA in September 2023 as the agency’s first deputy commissioner for the unified Human Foods Program (HFP), overseeing all FDA food safety and nutrition activities.
FDA officially debuted the new HFP in October 2024. The HFP, which focuses on inspections, investigations and imports as its core mission, was revamped to enhance collaboration between field investigators and other subject-matter experts throughout the agency. The renamed field operations unit has food safety, chemical safety and nutrition activities under its watch and is designed to facilitate nimbleness as new food technologies and global challenges emerge. In January, the agency banned Red Dye No. 3, noting that the dye cannot be used in food products due to its link to health conditions, including cancer.
[RELATED: FDA Updates Definition of 'Healthy']
Jones spent most of his career as a federal regulator of pesticides, toxic substances, chemical safety and pollution prevention at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and much of his tenure involved leadership and decision-making related to food safety. He held roles of increasing responsibility at EPA. As a principal architect of the 2016 overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act, Jones led discussions with members of Congress, industry and environmental groups that resulted in a law reshaping how chemical safety is managed in the United States. He also led several national-level sustainability programs, including the Environmental Preferable Purchasing Program and the Presidential Green Chemistry Awards Challenge.
From 2017 to 2020, Jones worked for the Household and Commercial Products Association as EVP for strategic alliances and industry relations, forging relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders and leading sustainability and green chemistry efforts. He then ran his own company advising clients on issues related to chemical safety and sustainability.
Jones came to the FDA with a thorough knowledge of the foods program, having served on the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s Independent Expert Panel that evaluated the Human Foods Program in 2022.
His resignation comes on the heels of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation to become the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees agencies regulating the food industry and supermarket pharmacies, such as the U.S. FDA.
