Government Shutdown Leaves FDA, NIH Understaffed

The government shutdown is making for a lot of empty desks at the nation’s public health agencies.

More than half of staff at organizations overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – roughly 40,000 employees — are being furloughed under contingency staffing plans outlined by HHS. The affected staff includes about 8,700 of the nearly 13,000 workers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 6,600 of the nearly 15,000 employees at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The furloughs will impact the government’s daily work of tracking salmonella outbreaks, monitoring measles epidemics and inspecting worksites to ensure that food and drugs are safe, the few officials still on the job told NBC News. The number of furloughed staff will vary daily, however, depending on the amount of “excepted” work that must be completed, HHS claims.

The National Institutes of Health, for instance, where nearly 14,000 of nearly 19,000 employees are being furloughed, will continue care for current patients, but will not admit new patients during the shutdown. Research will be halted temporarily, including clinical trials.

The FDA will continue “limited activities” related to its user fee-funded programs and maintain “critical consumer protection” tasks to handle emergencies, high-risk recalls, civil and criminal investigations, import entry review, and other critical public health issues. But the agency’s routine facility inspections will end, as will some compliance and enforcement activities, the monitoring of imports, notification programs (e.g., food contact substances, infant formula), and a majority of the laboratory research necessary to inform public health decision-making.

The FDA posted information about the shutdown for employees on its website. It also warned visitors that the shutdown could affect the timeliness of posted news.

The shutdown will not affect the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) ongoing projects funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund or Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services-funded work to measure development for the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. But AHRQ will not be able to fund new grants and contracts related to health services research initiatives, including research on improving patient safety and reducing healthcare-associated infections. In addition, data collection and modifications to the household survey of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey will be stopped.

The government shutdown also suspended the Health Resources and Services Administration’s twitter account. “We’re sorry, but we will not be tweeting during the government shutdown. We’ll be back as soon as possible!” read a message on the HHS website.