First, the Good News
By GAIL COLLINS, NYT
Good news: The people who track killer asteroids for NASA are still on the case, despite the government shutdown.
Bad news: A lot of the people who inspect food aren’t. The folks from the Department of Agriculture who check meatpacking plants are still working. But the guys at the Food and Drug Administration who make routine appearances at, say, the nut-shelling factory to look for vermin, are on furlough. Not to mention a lot of the people who check shipments of seafood or vegetables from outside the country.
“They’re not doing run-of-the-mill import inspections,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “The F.D.A. is really falling farther behind with every day.”
The House of Representatives has passed a bill to refund the F.D.A. This is part of a Republican strategy to approve the financing of things they like, one by one. It’s not entirely clear how popular the agency was before recent news of a salmonella outbreak erupted, but now it’s right up there with the national parks.
(More here.)
Good news: The people who track killer asteroids for NASA are still on the case, despite the government shutdown.
Bad news: A lot of the people who inspect food aren’t. The folks from the Department of Agriculture who check meatpacking plants are still working. But the guys at the Food and Drug Administration who make routine appearances at, say, the nut-shelling factory to look for vermin, are on furlough. Not to mention a lot of the people who check shipments of seafood or vegetables from outside the country.
“They’re not doing run-of-the-mill import inspections,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “The F.D.A. is really falling farther behind with every day.”
The House of Representatives has passed a bill to refund the F.D.A. This is part of a Republican strategy to approve the financing of things they like, one by one. It’s not entirely clear how popular the agency was before recent news of a salmonella outbreak erupted, but now it’s right up there with the national parks.
(More here.)
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