US Government Shutdown: Impact on the FDA and Food Safety

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees the approval of new drugs and oversees around 80 percent of our food supply, is among the agencies that are impacted by this partial US government shutdown. Last Wednesday, FDA commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb announced routine inspections would be temporarily suspended as hundreds of agency inspectors have been furloughed. This raises the risk of contaminated food products turning up in stores, restaurants and other locations. So how worried should we be? Host Dan Loney is joined by Marion Nestle, Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University as well as a Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University, and Craig Hedberg, Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and co-director of the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence, to discuss the implications of the shutdown and resulting food safety on Knowledge at Wharton.