The Food and Drug Administration is beginning to roll out a longer-term contingency plan to increase so-called excepted activities, such as routine inspections of high-risk food facilities. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo agriculture FDA to restart more food safety inspections affected by shutdown

The Food and Drug Administration plans as soon as Tuesday to restart food-safety inspections at facilities that handle riskier products like fresh-cut produce, as the partial government shutdown extends into its fourth week, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Monday.

Under the agency's initial shutdown plan, most routine food-safety inspections were halted. Staff who were excepted from the shutdown have been working without pay to keep a number of high-priority functions running. Examples of activities being handled by unpaid workers include active investigations of foodborne illness outbreaks, dangerous recalls, import screening and safety inspections of foods imported from overseas.


Inspections of food facilities that handle riskier products, such as seafood and soft cheeses, are considered routine and were initially halted under the FDA's plan. That sparked concern among food-safety advocates that the shutdown could be putting the public at risk.

With the partial government shutdown now in its 24th day, the FDA is beginning to roll out a longer-term contingency plan to increase so-called excepted activities, such as routine inspections of high-risk food facilities. The agency said last week it was working to restore such inspections.

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Last week, Gottlieb said FDA had halted or delayed only a small number of routine food-safety inspections. The agency typically conducts about 160 routine inspections each week, he said. About one-third of those inspections target high-risk facilities.

Facilities that handle high-risk foods are typically not inspected frequently, even when the government is fully funded. The FDA is required by law to inspect all high-risk food facilities every three years.

Several types of food fall under FDA's high-risk category, including seafood, soft cheeses, fresh fruits and vegetables, spices, shell eggs, infant formula, and medical foods. A food facility can also be considered high-risk if it has a history of food-safety problems. Roughly 20,000 food facilities in the U.S. that have been deemed high-risk.

Routine food-safety inspections of food facilities not deemed high-risk, such as bakeries, will still be suspended during the lapse in funding.

Meat and poultry food-safety inspections, which are covered by Agriculture Department, are continuing without interruption, though those inspectors also continue to work without pay.

Gottlieb has been using Twitter to keep FDA staff and the public apprised of the agency's efforts to cope with the lapse in funding. In a Twitter thread on Monday, he said sampling of high-risk imported produce has also been restarted in the Northeast.

"We'll expand our footprint as the week progresses," Gottlieb tweeted. "Our teams are working."

The commissioner praised the commitment of food-safety inspectors who are heading back to work without compensation.

"These men and women are the tip of the spear in our consumer protection mission," he said. "They're the very front line. And they're on the job. The entire nation owes them gratitude."