Food, minus safety net

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s food-safety inspection program is one of the casualties of the federal government’s partial shutdown.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will continue full-time inspections of meat-production facilities, but the FDA acts as a safety net for the majority of other American food-production facilities, according to The Huffington Post. An FDA representative said some—but not all—inspections will be conducted by state agriculture and public-health departments,

In fiscal year 2011, the FDA inspected about 20,000 food-production facilities, or about 80 per business day.