US closure weighs heavily on inspection roles of FDA and USDA: experts

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The government's partial halt weighs heavily on key security inspection tasks performed by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture, experts said Wednesday. in food security.

Workers in public health laboratories report disruptions in the DNA badysis of food samples involved in foodborne outbreaks and have expressed concern about "A USDA program that tests agricultural products to determine the dangerous levels of pesticides," they said.

This closure is "endangering our country's food supply," Connecticut representative Democrat Rosa DeLauro said Wednesday at a House Caucus briefing on food security in Congress. Only about one-third of regular FDA inspections are done, she said.

The FDA has fired 41% of its workforce on more than 17,000 employees, said Thomas Gremillion of the Consumer Federation of America. About 90 percent of the 9,500 employees at the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) remain at work but work without pay, he said.

Scott Gottlieb, FDA Commissioner, announced Tuesday on Twitter that he would bring back 150 food inspectors.

Foodborne disease outbreaks are the subject of a joint investigation between the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the FDA and FSIS, which traces the origin of the outbreaks to food producers.

The CDC is fully funded and continues to investigate outbreaks of foodborne illness, but "joint efforts to investigate, coordinate and report on these outbreaks could be delayed" due to closure, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.

He added that the research and evaluation of food production facilities and ongoing laboratory tests depend on the resources of its partner agencies, which are reduced during a shutdown.

Peter Kyriacopoulos, Senior Director of Public Policy at the Association of Public Health Laboratories, who represents state and local public health laboratories, said that member laboratories reported delays in public health. badysis of DNA sequences of pathogens taken from patients likely to be badociated with food products. , an important part of the research process.

APHL members have also reported disruptions in the USDA's AMS Pesticide Data program, which samples, tests and reports pesticide residues in agricultural products from US food products that may cause problems for children.

He learned on Wednesday that one of the 10 public health laboratories testing products was planning to continue badyzing samples during the shutdown period, without any compensation, Kyriacopoulos told Reuters. He refused to name the laboratory.