A government shutdown is having far-reaching consequences for some, but minimal impact on others.
Mail is being delivered. Social Security and Medicare benefits continue to flow.
But new patients are not being accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health, although current patients continue to receive care. Medical research at the NIH has been disrupted as some studies have been delayed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been severely limited in spotting or investigating disease outbreaks such as the flu or that mysterious MERS virus from the Middle East.
The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they could handle recalls and high-risk foodborne outbreaks, but they are less likely to discover them because most of the people who investigate outbreaks have been furloughed.
Routine food safety inspections conducted by FDA are suspended, so most food manufacturers won’t have to worry about periodic visits from government inspectors to make sure their facilities are clean. U.S. food inspections abroad have also been halted.
USDA’s federal meat inspections are proceeding as usual, however. USDA inspectors are on the lines every day in meatpacking plants and are required to be there by law for the plants to stay open.
NASA continues to keep workers at Mission Control in Houston and elsewhere to support the International Space station, where two Americans and four others are deployed. It also exempted a robotic probe to Mars from the shutdown because time is tight to be ready for a once-every-two-year launch opportunity.
The National Weather Service is forecasting weather and issuing warnings while the National Hurricane Center continues to track storms. The scientific work of the U.S. Geological Survey has been halted.
Release Date: October 7, 2013
Source: The Associated Press Via: http://www.cemag.us/news/2013/10/government-shutdown-impacts-health-and-science-research#.UlW4MFCG0gg
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