The FDA's routine food inspections stopped at public closure
With hundreds of food inspectors furloughed into the ongoing government closure, the Food and Drug Administration has suspended all routine inspections of domestic food establishments. It is according to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who revealed the news in an interview with Washington Post published Wednesday.
Gottlieb said that the agency that monitors about 80 percent of the food supply continues to oversee foreign producers and imported food, as well as any domestic producers involved in a current recall or outbreak.
But the agency is skipping the 160-year routine food inspections that it usually performs every week. In these evaluations, FDA inspectors assess manufacturing practices in food processing plants, as well as controls for adverse conditions such as attack and pollution. About one-third of the 160 weekly checks involve facilities that the agency considers "high risk", Gottlieb adds. High-risk facilities are those that either handle foods that are particularly vulnerable to security issues, such as soft cheeses and seafood, or facilities that have a record of food safety issues.
"We do what we can to reduce the risk to consumers through the closure," Gottlieb says. He is now working on a plan to call back 150 inspectors to focus on high-risk facilities. While these workers still would not be paid until after the closing, Gottlieb said he had set up a travel agency to help these inspectors keep large balances of their personal credit cards.
Nevertheless, Sarah Sorscher, vice president of regulatory affairs in the nonprofit community responsibility center of science in public interest, called the unanswered inspections, is unacceptable. "It puts the food supply at risk," Sorscher said. "Regular inspections, which help stop food-borne illness before people get sick, are important."
Every year, approx. 48 million people were fed food-borne diseases in the United States, leading to 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The meat, poultry and egg facilities not inspected by the FDA are monitored by the US Department of Agriculture, which has maintained inspections during the closure.
