Mega barf alert: FDA Food Safety Inspections Suspended During Government Shutdown 01 Oct 2013 One troubling casualty of the federal government shutdown is the suspension of the Food and Drug Administration's food safety inspection program. The FDA actually oversees the safety of the vast majority of the country's food industry. And according to a memo released by the Department of Health and Human Services, the bulk of FDA food inspectors have been deemed non-essential, so will inspect few if any food facilities until Congress and the president agree on a bill to fund the federal government... The 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act requires U.S. inspectors to check almost 35,000 facilities a year, but funding has not been provided to meet that mandate. [But there's plenty of money to protect the CIA's opium routes in Afghanistan and to arm the al-Qaeda 'rebels' in Syria, though, right?]