– OPINION –
Government strikes have always undermined food safety. USDA inspectors since salaries about $40,000, must work for free. Many FDA inspectors have been fired, and the agency is suspending its routine inspections of food processing plants, directing core inspection staff to conduct exclusively “for causal checks” It is likely that the limited and distracted presence of inspections results in illnesses caused by food safety hazards that could otherwise be detected and addressed.
This is still true today. But the circumstances leading to the current federal funding impasse have raised the stakes significantly.
Unlike previous shutdowns, this comes amid an unprecedented withdrawal of support for state and local public health infrastructure. As of 2022 report Federal money—mostly CDC grants—made up 55 percent of local health department budgets, according to the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). In fiscal year 2023, CDC paid $14.9 billion states and local jurisdictions. But earlier this year the Trump administration
announced it was rescinding $11.4 billion in CDC allocations to states. The head of the Alabama Department of Public Health, which lost $190 million in federal funding, explained that the cuts “don't just mean fewer dollars flowing or cutting programs—it also means cutting a lot of staff.”
The administration has framed its cutting off of congressionally appropriated funding as a targeted attack on outdated Covid-19 funding and “woke” priorities such as research on vaccine hesitancy, LGBTQ populations and support for HIV prevention. But the scale of the cuts will inevitably lead to the degradation of public health infrastructure more broadly. Notably, back in July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “quietly reduced” the extent of foodborne illnesses it expected state and local partners to report through its Active Foodborne Illness Surveillance Network (FoodNet), given funding constraints. FoodNet partners have been instrumental in identifying many nationwide outbreaks, such as a cluster of Listeria infections linked to Boar's Head deli meats last year that killed 10 people and sickened dozens more. Many of these partners will now stop tracking and reporting Listeria. and five other pathogens previously included in FoodNet, with an exclusive focus on Salmonella. and E. coli.
This is alarming because surveillance of foodborne illness requires the government to play a primary role, even more so than food safety inspections. Food companies have a financial incentive to keep their facilities clean and avoid lawsuits from customers who get sick from their products. In contrast, there is no money to track foodborne illnesses and study their epidemiology. However, this surveillance activity plays an important role – the most important according to some experts, its role in ensuring food safety.
The closure poses a more ominous threat to food safety because the attack on public health that preceded it made it more difficult to measure food safety risk. As fewer government officials bother to report foodborne illnesses, share and analyze data, interview patients, and conduct epidemiological investigations, we may be blind to what furloughed government inspectors should have uncovered until consumer losses mount to crisis proportions. The result could be a further decline in consumer confidence in the security of food supplies from new countries. minimums recruitment in August.
However, the path forward is unclear. The administration hid $410 billion (almost a quarter of the total discretionary spending) from the moment of taking office. Congress could end the shutdown tomorrow and provide new funding for public health and food safety, but that would be unlikely to guarantee the money would reach state and local health departments. The decision, according to tens of thousands of federal employees who wrote Democratic members of Congress earlier this week is to “withhold support for any budget that does not return legal authority to Congress and ensure that all appropriated funds are spent on our essential government services.” According to the workers, “we will willingly give up wages in the hope of preserving the programs to which we have dedicated our lives.”
Federal workers' willingness to sacrifice sends a powerful message and further differentiates the current shutdown from others in the past. This message may fall on deaf ears in Congress, but consumers should take note. Food safety defenses and the public health infrastructure that underpins those defenses have long enjoyed support across the political spectrum. There is no reason that needs to change now.
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