Democrats Take a Swipe at RFK Jr. Over Food Recalls in 2026: How Many Have There Been?

The Democratic Party has called for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign as US health secretary, turning a summer of grocery recalls into a line of attack on his record.

In a post shared across its official social accounts in late August, the party set a long list of pulled products against a single demand: 'RFK Jr.'s time as HHS Secretary has been a complete disaster. He must resign.' The items it flagged read like a supermarket aisle: iceberg lettuce, jalapeños, granola, salmon, and ricotta cheese, each tied to bacteria or parasites.

The timing is uncomfortable for Kennedy. He runs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which houses the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and he has staked his public standing on the Make America Healthy Again drive to clean up what Americans eat. A wave of contaminated food cuts against that message.

Just How Many Recalls Have There Been?

So how many recalls have there actually been? The honest answer is that it depends on who is counting. One widely cited tally, compiled by the US Public Interest Research Group from FDA and USDA notices, put the figure above 160 through mid-August, running at about half of 2025's total of 320. On that measure alone, a straight extrapolation would leave 2026 short of last year.

Other counts point the other way. Susan Mayne, who ran the FDA's food safety centre from 2015 to 2023, filtered the agency's own recall dashboard to food alone and found 483 food recall events with 45 days of the fiscal year still to run, a pace pointing towards roughly 551. That would be the highest food recall total since 2018. The gap comes down to method: calendar year against fiscal year, and combined agency notices against FDA food events alone. No single official figure settles it.

What is not in dispute is the rhythm. Recalls have arrived in dense clusters rather than a steady trickle, and in one week in mid-August, the FDA posted 12 separate warnings, several times its count for the same week a year earlier.

That kind of spike, rather than any annual trend, has filled social feeds with a sense that everything is being pulled at once.

The Recalls Behind the Backlash

Several cases have earned the FDA's most serious label. Nearly 1.6 million dozen eggs from Midwest Poultry Services were recalled in July over salmonella, and the alert was raised to Class I, the agency's highest tier, on 12 August. By the time the CDC closed that investigation on 3 September, it had recorded 134 illnesses across 18 states and 34 hospital admissions, with no deaths.

The summer's largest outbreak was still more serious. Iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico, served at Taco Bell and sold at retail, was tied to a cyclospora outbreak that the CDC put at 11,458 illnesses across 20 states, with at least 495 hospital admissions and two deaths in Michigan, both in people with underlying conditions. The lettuce was recalled on 17 July, by which point most of those affected had already fallen ill.

Other alerts kept the anxiety high. Frozen blueberries sold at Publix were withdrawn over possible E. coli, and a batch of sourdough was flagged for metal fragments.

HHS Pushes Back on the Numbers

Kennedy's department disputes the alarm rather than the events. Its rapid-response account said food recalls were at their 'lowest in years', and on 21 August, the FDA's main account posted a chart making a similar claim. Mayne and other specialists challenged it within days, noting that the chart counted every product the agency regulates, from drugs to tobacco, not food alone. Filtered to food, she said, the claim appeared to rest on incorrect data.

Kennedy has defended the administration's handling of the outbreaks and urged Congress to give the FDA more authority and funding over the food supply. The agency has kept issuing and tracking recalls all year.

The pushback did little to quiet Democratic critics. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Kennedy of hollowing out the federal government, linking those cuts to unsafe products reaching shoppers. Senator Ruben Gallego said Republicans were 'making the country sicker and poorer' while anxious parents checked their fridges.

Why the Story Took Off

The row took off because it fuses two reliable online triggers: a recognisable political target and the fear that the food in the fridge might be unsafe. Each fresh recall is easy to screenshot, feeding a running tally on X and TikTok.

For shoppers, though, the advice is unchanged. Check recalled brands and use-by dates against the outbreaks still active this summer, rather than the competing scoreboards.