Government shutdown halts FDA food inspections. Should you worry?
Source: Raw Story
When it comes to the government shutdown, there are plenty of things to feel gloomy and alarmed over. One of the more attention-getting work stoppages so far has been at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where 45 percent of employees have been sent home and many of the agency’s day-to-day activities, most notably food safety inspections, are on hold until the budget impasse is over.
So, 91 percent of seafood that Americans consume, which the United States imports, is not being inspected, currently. The same goes for the nearly 50 percent of fruits and 20 percent of vegetables consumed in the US but imported from abroad. And though many of inspections here in the US are still being carried out through state and local agencies, reporting any problems encountered at the federal level could be difficult.
“Detection of problems won’t be the issue," says Neal Hooker, a professor of food policy at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at Ohio State University in Columbus. “Management of, say, a product recall, and helping local public-health agencies work more effectively, those parts will be harder to do.”
The government shutdown has closed down a large part of the FDA, and its food monitoring activities in particular.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/04/government-shutdown-halts-fda-food-inspections-should-you-worry/
= new reply since forum marked as read
suspended inspections of our food supply? 
Response to Galraedia (Original post)
BLAKELY, GA—Blakely civic leaders were baffled last weekend as Cryptosporidium Daze, their elaborately planned summer festival celebrating the popular waterborne pathogen, failed to draw tourists to the Southwest Georgia town.
"Just as Colquitt celebrates its agricultural heritage with Watermelon Days, we wanted to host a festival that reflected the uniqueness of our community," Blakely Town Council president Jane Lyons said Monday. "When someone suggested a theme inspired by the historical event we're best known for, the Great Cryptosporidium Outbreak of 1988, we knew we had the answer."
Twelve years ago, Lyons said, a small amount of pig feces seeped into the town's municipal water supply, contaminating it with cryptosporidium. As a result, 611 citizens contracted cryptosporidiosis, an intestinal disease marked by abdominal cramps, violent diarrhea, nausea, and fever.
"If it weren't for our town's brush with cryptosporidium, the EPA never would have enacted the Surface Water Treatment Act of 1989," Lyons said. "It established drinking-water standards for the entire country—and it all started right here in Blakely!"
...http://www.theonion.com/articles/small-towns-cryptosporidium-daze-fails-to-attract,1774/
