Science Friday - Recall rodeo: A food safety update + Why cars are catching fire

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Between E. coli in blueberries, glass in popsicles, and that dreaded cyclospora, this summer was all about keeping a wary eye on the groceries in the fridge. But how does the recall data stack up against previous years? And are federal cuts to food safety agencies to blame? Flora talks to food safety expert Brian Ronholm to get the big picture.Plus, more than 1.5 million cars have been recalled this year for risk of bursting into flames. As automotive journalist Jason Torchinsky explains, it's a miracle it doesn’t happen more often.Guests:Brian Ronholm is the director of food policy at Consumer Reports.Jason Torchinsky is an automotive journalist and co-founder of Autopian.Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, it's Flora Lickman, and you're listening to Science Friday. It has felt like a food recall summer. Salmonella in eggs, jalapenos, granola, ecoli and blueberries, glass and popsicles, unidentified foreign material and white rice, uninspected beef, and who could forget about cyclospora. The parasite you'd probably never heard of until more than 18,000 people were sickened by it this summer. So is this an unusual year for food recalls and have federal cuts to food safety agencies played a role? Is our food safer than it was 30 years ago or not? Joining me now to unzip the produce bag and turn over every baby spinach leaf of this topic is Brian Ronholm,

Director of Food Policy at Consumer Reports. He lives, breathes, and eats food safety. Hey, Brian, welcome to Science Friday. Great to be with you, Flora. Okay, so it feels like there have been more recalls than usual, but does the data actually support that? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right, Flora. It definitely feels like it when you consider all of the recalls that you just outlined. But really for food safety recalls and outbreaks, when you look at data over time, it tends to be fairly flat with little fluctuations.

So certainly we will see some bumps this year because of the amount of recall. But typically what happens is when you go through a series of high-profile recalls that involve name brands, it really makes folks acutely aware of recalls in general. And so just they'll look out for the next one and kind of draw this conclusion that there must be a problem going on right now when in fact is just consistent with what we experience over time. So the numbers aren't wildly different this this year? Yeah, that's right. And, you know, thinking back to 2024, that was another year where we saw some high-profile recalls, the Boershead, deli meat recall, you may remember. And there was some onions with McDonald's hamburgers that were subject to recall. So, you know, that was the situation where there was some very high-profile, well-known names to consumers. And they happened pretty much back to back. And I think that gave the impression to folks that there was a bigger problem going on then. And a similar pattern is developing this year. What about the numbers of people getting sick? Is that any different this year? We'll definitely see an uptick on that when you consider the number of cyclosporic cases. That's certainly an anomaly. It's rare that you'll see the number of

illnesses reach kind of five digits. So that certainly will be reflected in this year's data. You know, as I was reading that intro, there were really, there have been a variety. of problems. It's not just one thing. Is that typical? Surprisingly, it is typical when you look at the number of foods, the types of foods that get recalled every year. And a lot of times it's for similar reasons, right, foreign matter contamination. You have metal shards that accidentally end up in some products in addition to kind of the bacteria, pathogen recalls for E. coli and salmonella. But again, And once we're so focused on it, become so acutely aware, you think, oh, my goodness, there's a much bigger problem going on, when in fact, there's a lot of recalls that probably fall under the radar that people typically wouldn't be focused on.

Take me behind the scenes a little bit. I mean, I see these companies put out press releases that talk about these voluntary recalls. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, there's glass in your popsicles. I'm like, I'm not going to congratulate you for voluntarily. recalling them. When you read that sort of what is happening behind the scenes there? Yeah, I'm always skeptical when I read a company press release as it relates to a recall because there are several statements that certainly flies in the face of truthiness, if you will. One of them is the food safety is our top priority.

That's always the first sentence of every company press release. And it's so amusing to see that. that when they're announcing a recall. You know, another statement is out of an abundance of caution. We are instituting this recall voluntarily, as you noted. What doesn't get reported in that particular statement is that likely what's going on behind the scenes is they're really fighting tooth and nail with regulators to either limit the scope of the overall recall or talk them out of it.

completely. And finally, it just takes a final push by the regulator to say, listen, you need to do this or we're going to publicly shame you in some way. So I think consumers overall should be skeptical when they read these company press releases about food safety. I think they are. Yeah. Okay. I mean, there's been a lot of conversation about cuts to FDA and CDC. Yeah. Is there a link to what we're seeing now and those policy decisions. Absolutely, absolutely. And here's why a lot of us in the consumer group community think of the food safety regulatory system as kind of a Jenga tower, right? All of the blocks represent a key piece of the oversight system that goes on. So surveillance, inspections, testing,

investigations, research. And so when you go through a situation where there are significant cuts and resources and capacity, these blocks get gradually removed and makes the system more unstable than it once was. And I think we're seeing that play out this year, especially with the cyclospora situation, because that was a pathogen where the CDC was forced to cut back on surveillance because of the budget cuts they went through. Are there other examples of how cuts or changes to rules may have, you know, maybe affecting our food safety? Yeah, certainly when you look at the cuts that happened at the FDA over the past couple years with a number of inspectors, with the laboratory capacity, their ability to test,

you look at how the traceability rule has been delayed for more than 15, 16 years now. What's the traceability rule? So there was a law passed in 2011, Food Safety Modernization Act, And within that law, there was a provision that required the industry to set up an adequate traceability system that would allow the industry to trace back a particular product down to its source in an efficient manner. Therefore, just limiting the impact of a recall, right? So if they're able to trace back a particular product down to the source, they're able to identify it quicker, identify source of an outbreak quicker and pull that product, and thus limiting the consumer. exposure and lower the risk of additional illnesses. That was the key provision in the law, but under industry pressure, FDA has delayed the implementation of that rule. And so now it's not

going to go into effect until July 28th. And that's 17 years after the original law was passed. I mean, I was going to ask, you know, how are these problems caught? And from your perspective, Is that part of the system working well or not? Part of it is. I mean, part of it is when you're able to identify a particular source of an outbreak. It is an example. However, there's a much bigger problem that exists with our food safety oversight in that it needs to be focused on prevention,

like preventing illnesses before they become a problem. Sure, it's great if we can identify them and compel a particular recall, but it's much better to set up. up a regulatory system where you're preventing them in the first place before it becomes a bigger problem. I mean, are there low-hanging fruit interventions that should be happening but aren't happening, in your opinion? Certainly with the industry, the produce industry is particularly vexing in that there's a lot of distrust within that industry itself between buyers and growers. Think of all the retail stores that get impacted by a produce recall. They're forced to remove product

or discount it heavily in order to move it. And so they're impacted by a recall like this. So they'll typically insist on strict standards from their suppliers to avoid that issue. And from the growers' perspective, they chafe at any type of approach that essentially, in their minds, it's telling them what they're doing. And in their minds, they know what they're doing and are stubborn in trying to implement any types of change. What are the things that should change, do you think?

Overall in the industry, I mean, the cyclospora recall is a good example of the bigger picture that needs to change for food safety. So it's increasing funding for the CDC so that allows them to conduct proper surveillance of all of these pathogens. It's increasing funding for the FDA to ensure they have the inspections and can do foreign inspections as well. It also allows them to have, you know, the laboratory capacity to conduct these investigations and identify problems quicker. You know, it's implementing the traceability system we talked about. It's all of these pieces that need to be put in place as part of the bigger picture to improve our food safety system. Yeah, I mean, I'm hearing money. I'm hearing we need to spend more money.

Yeah, and it's so frustrating, Flora. I mean, especially for a lot of these agents. the FDA particularly, I mean, that's on the food side, you know, they've been chronically underfunded for decades. And this is going way back across several administrations. So when you have an agency that's already chronically underfunded and then you tack on significant staff and resource cuts, it really puts them further behind. Brian, you've been covering this a long time. Do you think our food is safer than it was 30 years ago? That's a tough question, Flora.

It's hard for me to think that it's safer when you see what's going on behind the scenes, the way the industry fights against any type of regulations and standards, because their focus is on the economic impact to their company as opposed to trying to improve food safety. I would say that the overall food safety system is probably more unstable than it was 30 years ago. and it's for the reasons why we talked about, right? It's the agency being chronically underfunded over decades. It's, you know, the lack of inspectors, the foreign inspection is a good example where there's less than 1% of foreign products

get inspected when they come through. Wow. So that's been a number that's existed for quite a while. And so when you pile along the additional cuts, it makes it less likely that these products are getting inspected when they're at the border. And certainly this recent situation with cyclospora highlights that. Fascinating. Thank you, Brian.

Thanks a lot, Laura. Brian Ronholm is the Director of Food Policy at Consumer Reports. After the break, another problem I don't really want to think about, cars spontaneously catching fire. Don't go away. Up next, speaking of problems I wish we didn't have, This year already, more than a million and a half cars, including some jeeps and Kia's, have been recalled because of a risk of the car bursting into flames. Not while the car is on, not while you're driving it, while the car is sitting parked with the engine off. These have been called park outside recalls put forth by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

So why are cars spontaneously bursting into flames? Here to take us under the hood is Jason Turchinsky, car journalist, co-founder of the website, Autopian and General Car Freak. Does that seem fair? That's very fair, I think, yes. Generous even, yes. Okay, Jason, is it weird that cars are bursting into flames? To you?

Unfortunately, no. I mean, there is a weird aspect to it, but in my many years with cars, they always want to burst into flames, weirdly. It's kind of amazing they're not constantly in flames. And the truth is, Cars, you know, like, they're better now in a lot of ways when it comes to catching on fire. And I'll explain what's changed, but I've had plenty of old cars. My daily driver cars are still old cars that use carburetors.

Carbulators are these things that mix fuel and air, and as a bi-product, they also leak gas all the time as they get old. You know, I have had many cars where the carburetor is right above the very hot exhaust manifold, and it would just dump gas right on there, and you could see it smoking and almost catching on fire. Generally, though, the way it used to be is this only happened when the car was running. The key difference now is it happens when the cars are off. And this is the key because you think they're off. But the truth is, and the fundamental reason why this is happening, is that modern cars are never really off.

What do you mean? It seems off. Seems off. You turn off your car, gas or electric. It seems inert and it's just sitting there. But then think about this. Okay. So in an old car, when you turned it off, it was completely in her. If you wanted to turn it on, you had to go there with a physical key, shove it in a little hole, turn it.

You had to do physical things to bring life into this machine. A modern car detects when you're nearby with its key, and it gets all ready, and it turns on its little lights. And it's also got all kinds of security systems so it knows if anyone's messing with your door. Some cards even have camera systems that turn on. What this means is, when your car is off, it is still electrically on. The engine, even a gas car, may not be running, but there is plenty of current running through that car to run all of these convenience systems and security systems that we now take for granted. And this is at the root of the issue. Because you have hot wires that can overheat and you also have gasoline in many cases.

And by hot, we mean electrically hot, meaning there's electrons and current flowing through these wires. And any time you have that, you have the possibility of a short, you have the possibility of a spark. and then there's proximity to fuel, there's proximity to other hot things, and this is how fires start. And if you look at some of the reasons for the fires, like the Hyundai Kia fires, I believe, they said those were caused by leaks of brake fluid from the ABS system onto some electronic components. And brake fluid is not normally conductive, but as it wears and gets water and metallic components in it, it becomes conductive. And also, modern cars have so much stuff crammed in tight. Like space is at a premium, especially when you talk about hybrids, which have two entire kinds of drive trains jammed into them.

So it's tiny spaces with lots of stuff in close proximity. It's all hot. There's always current. It's a wonder these things aren't blowing up everywhere. Well, I mean, we've heard of EVs catching fire. Is that a different issue? It's a similar issue. I mean, the fundamental causes of why an EV catches fire, you know,

it has to do also with something shorted out. something is running a bunch of current and making heat that shouldn't be when it's off. The only problem is with EVs when this happens, it can lead to what they call thermal runaway in modern batteries, and then you've got all kinds of problems because those batteries store a lot of energy, and when this thermal runaway happens, it's the temperature, it's keep going up and up and up and there's no way to stop it, and EV fires are extremely hard to put out. Like, you know, you put out a gas fire, you can pretty much just douse it and water or whatever

and it goes out. EV fires can reignite. That's why they're so scared. You know, I would take the key back if my car wasn't going to burn my house down, you know? Like, take me to that simpler time, Jason. That's why I drive old, old heaps. I drive, like, my daily driver is this old Citro end that makes 29 horsepower. It's nothing.

And it's two cylinders, and it's all just flaps, and it couldn't be any more crude. And I love that. And I feel like there was a sweet spot, I kind of think, in the 90s to the early 2000s, where we had solved a lot of basic problems, like fuel injection was very common. So that replaces carburetors. They're not leaky. They just inject fuel right in the cylinders. They start better than a carburetor did.

And we had some electronics, but not too much. You still started with a physical key. And it was kind of like the beginning of the modern era, but we hadn't started piling on all these features. And I feel like we've gotten out of control. We don't need all these stupid screens. Like, we've lost the plot here a little bit. We just need to calm down.

Jason Torshinsky is the co-founder of the website, Autopian. Thank you, Jason. It's always a pleasure. Thanks for letting me rant. That's it for today's episode. If you feel like your brain has just caught fire with this new knowledge, why not leave us a review? Here's a recent one from HPE-080712 who says, each SciFRI episode creates more fascination for me about the vastness of the scientific world. I find myself smiling and I can't wait to share my new knowledge with others.

I love my new regular dose of dopamine. Thanks, HB. That is so nice to hear. We'll catch you next time. I'm Flora Lichtman.