diff --git a/src/core/lib/gprpp/load_file.cc b/src/core/lib/gprpp/load_file.cc
index e03ee728c06..dc870aef218 100644
--- a/src/core/lib/gprpp/load_file.cc
+++ b/src/core/lib/gprpp/load_file.cc
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@ namespace grpc_core {
 
 // Loads the content of a file into a slice. add_null_terminator will add a NULL
 // terminator if true.
+// This API is NOT thread-safe and requires proper synchronization when used by
+// multiple threads, especially when they can happen to be reading from the same
+// file.
 absl::StatusOr<Slice> LoadFile(const std::string& filename,
                                bool add_null_terminator) {
   unsigned char* contents = nullptr;
@@ -61,7 +64,6 @@ absl::StatusOr<Slice> LoadFile(const std::string& filename,
   bytes_read = fread(contents, 1, contents_size, file);
   if (bytes_read < contents_size) {
     gpr_free(contents);
-    GPR_ASSERT(ferror(file));
     error = absl::InternalError(
         absl::StrCat("Failed to load file: ", filename,
                      " due to error(fread): ", strerror(errno)));