I had to explain to my mom today what sequestration was.
They had just returned from Boston with my sister’s family, and were wondering why all the flights were delayed.
I said, sequestration.
She said, what?
I explained how there was these mandated budget cuts and it was now impacting air traffic controllers, so a lot of flights were delayed.
I may have sounded reasonable because I had just got off the phone with Liz Szabo of USA Today, about the effects of sequestration on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Or not.
Liz writes that FDA is losing $209 million because of the sequester; it will perform about 2,100 fewer food inspections because of the cuts; and consumer advocates worry that less oversight will increase foodborne illness outbreaks.
Guess I’m not a self-proclaimed advocate, cause I told her something different.
“Douglas Powell, a professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said private companies have no reason to slack off on food safety, with 
or without inspections.
“Because companies are legally liable for the safety of their food, they have a strong economic incentive to inspect their own products and prevent outbreaks.
“The government is there to maintain a minimal standard, but they really inspect very little food,” Powell said. “It is in a company’s best interest to take that seriously and not make their customers barf.”
FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY the agency will conduct fewer food safety inspections this year because of the government sequester.
To which I said, uh-huh.
While consumers may not feel the impact immediately, the loss of $209 million from its budget will force the agency to conduct about 2,100 fewer inspections, an 18% decline compared to last year.
The funding loss, part of the $85 billion in automatic budget cuts that took effect March 1, will also delay the agency’s implementation of the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act, Hamburg said in an interview with the USA TODAY Editorial Board. “Nobody is more frustrated than we are” that the law isn’t yet in practice, said Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine.