Fed Shutdown Could Be Hazardous to Your Health as Cuts Affect CDC, FDA and NIH

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The shutdown of the U.S. federal government so far has had little direct impact on the day-to-day lives of most Americans, save for possible disruptions to travel plans. No matter where a person stands on the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as "Obamacare," the truth of the matter is that the impact is far more personal than most citizens realize, as the federal government is already instrumental in ensuring the safety of our health.

Federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are directly affected by the shutdown. As a result, so is the entire country.

As the flu season begins, the CDC monitors the spread of flu and figures out how best to direct vaccine programs around the country. Unfortunately, according to a memo issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency will be "unable to support the annual seasonal influenza program." Two-thirds of the CDC's employees--about 8,000 workers--have been furloughed.

The potential for problems spreads beyond the flu, as the memo goes on to state that the CDC also has to stop providing "...support to state and local partners for infectious disease surveillance." This includes other outbreaks the agency will not be able to monitor, such as hepatitis A, salmonella, measles, and food-borne illnesses like the contaminated bags of lettuce that caused "stomach bag outbreak" this year.

The FDA, charged with monitoring the majority of all drugs and foods taken in the U.S., has furloughed nearly half of its staff due to the shutdown. That translates to nearly 7,000 employees and the end of many inspections, enforcement actions and monitoring operations. The agency also has had to suspending the "majority" of its internal lab research. According to a statement released by the agency, "...there are a number of excepted FDA inspectors who are prioritizing their work based on public health need and are being deployed to respond to recalls, outbreaks or other situations requiring immediate attention. However, they will not be conducting important routine work to support inspections."

The NIH has lost roughly two-thirds of its staff of 13,000 workers. As the shutdown continues, the NIH estimates having to turn away 200 people a week who, under normal circumstances, would be admitted to new clinical trial programs seeking treatment for a variety of medical conditions. Clinical trials may compare medical products, such as drugs or devices; procedures; or changes to participants' behavior, such as diets. The NIH estimates that on average, about 30 of those new patients would be children and about 10 would be children with cancer.

What does this mean in the long term? That the longer the shutdown endures, the greater the effect will be on people across the country. Once funding is restored, it then becomes a race to discover and try to correct just what went wrong while nobody was looking.

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