Government Shutdown and Food Safety - Let the Media Begin Their Spin

With the US Government shutdown, there is bound to be numerous news releases on the impact on food safety.  While the FDA has suspended inspections, USDA continues to inspect facilities.  Will our food become more risky?  Reading through the headlines, consumers can be made to feel uneasy, depending on what they read:
Time - You May Be at Higher Risk of Eating Contaminated Food During the Government Shutdown
Live Science - What the Slowdown in FDA Food Inspections Means for You (Spoiler: Don't Panic Yet)

The reality is that food (FDA regulated items) will not instantaneously become more risky.  Yes, FDA inspections are an important part of our food safety system, but their role is more inspection than preventive control.  FDA is not in every facility every day, most facilities would lucky to get a yearly inspection (although I am sure they would not say lucky).  When we look at the major outbreaks this year - the E. coli in Romaine lettuce outbreaks in AZ and CA, it is not like we have inspectors in the fields testing canal water or chasing wild critters away.  And it is not like food processors are a bunch of hoodlums who will suddenly stop obeying regulations because they are less likely to get an inspection.  Processors are businesses who need to produce safe product to stay in business.  If there is an outbreak, there are emergency response personnel.  Plus state inspections are still being conducted, covering FDA regulated facilities.

Longer term however, inspectors are important for reviewing facilities that have complaint issues, or who may have had past transgressions.  Their role is also important for reporting and investigating food facilities who are involved in an outbreak or who have issued a recall.  And true, knowing the cop may be around the corner is more likely to ensure that you don't do the rolling stop at the stop sign.  The vast majority won't, but certainly an arguable point.

Finally, nobody likes to be out of work due to political issues or any issues, especially those issues that do not involve the work that they do.

Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennysplitter/2019/01/10/what-the-government-shutdown-means-for-food-safety/#2c82f070f6d3
What The Government Shutdown Means For Food Safety
Jenny Splitter  Contributor  Food & Drink  I cover the intersections of technology, farming and food.  Jan 10, 2019 

• Without federal funding, the FDA’s routine food safety inspections can’t be scheduled as usual. 
• The shutdown threatens regulatory protections for the food system already in place, as insufficient as they may be.

The U.S. government shutdown continues to drag on, past 19 days today with no end in sight. One agency feeling the impact is the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for conducting routine food safety inspections in food production and food-processing facilities throughout the United States. Without federal funding, the FDA’s routine food safety inspections can’t be scheduled as usual.

Many American consumers remain anxious about the safety of their food supply after the multiple E coli outbreaks in romaine lettuce and salmonella contamination in beef that occurred last year. The news that the FDA doesn’t have the funding to continue these routine food safety inspections has many American consumers on edge.

While the romaine outbreaks seem to have prompted more food safety awareness, what consumers might not realize is just how few inspections take place on a regular basis. Americans may assume the federal government regularly inspects all food in production, but that’s not possible, even with a fully funded FDA.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb offered further comment about how the shutdown is affecting food safety inspections on Twitter, pointing out that no inspections would have taken place over the Christmas and New Year holidays anyway, regardless of the shutdown. According to Gottlieb, this is the first week inspections aren’t being scheduled as usual. At most, he continued, the FDA failed to schedule around 20 inspections out of the 8,400 it conducts annually.

These food safety inspections are conducted at a sampling of facilities at random, which means only a small number of operations are ever checked during any given week. This has led many food system observers to argue that even when the government is operating as usual, the FDA doesn’t have the proper funding or staffing to conduct a sufficient number of food safety inspections, as evidenced by the multiple foodborne illness outbreaks the food system experienced last year.

Congress did approve funding for ongoing inspections of imported food, though it failed to include domestic inspections in that allocation. In addition, the USDA continues to inspect the meat, poultry and processed egg facilities that fall under its purview, though the federal inspectors doing this work are doing so without pay. Plenty of companies also insist on their own inspections, though the quality of that inspection will depend on the thoroughness of that company’s practices. 

Some food processing facilities are categorized by the FDA as “high risk” for foodborne disease outbreaks, like facilities that process seafood and soft cheeses, for example. Gottlieb has said he is taking steps to try and reinstate inspections for these high-risk facilities as soon as possible, but that will mean these federal employees will have to work without pay, prompting Gottlieb to look for creative solutions like allowing for travel to be billed directly to the agency rather than reimbursing the funds to the employee at a later date, as NBC News has reported.

Ultimately, the longer the shutdown drags on, the more difficult it will be for essential federal employees to carry out their jobs without pay. The shutdown threatens regulatory protections for the food system already in place, as insufficient as they may be.