A total 95 percent of the more than 800 staff members of the FDA center that sets and enforces food safety regulations are not working as a result of the partial government shutdown, according to an influential blog.
At issue is the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, which has “employees who range from secretaries and other support staff to highly specialized professionals -- such as chemists, microbiologists, toxicologists, food technologists, pathologists, molecular biologists, pharmacologists, nutritionists, epidemiologists, mathematicians, sanitarians, physicians and veterinarians,” says the agency website.
Most Center staff members work in the center's headquarters in College Park, MD, but it also operates research facilities in Laurel, MD; Bedford, IL, and in Dauphin Island, AL.