Everyone knows about the really obvious effects of the government shutdown on science— the Smithsonian museums are closed, national parks are closed, NASA is pretty much closed, and this thing pops up whenever you try to do research for a science class:
However, there are two other slightly more serious consequences that haven’t been publicized as much: many patients with serious illness are being kept from possible treatments, and our food is no longer being inspected.
Even though people are still being enrolled in clinical trials at the National Institutes of Health, the process has become much slower. Only 12 patients have been enrolled since October 1st, when the shutdown began. Normally, about 200 patients, many with cancer, are enrolled each week and more than 1,400 trials run at any given time. But because of the lapse in funding, only people who are in immediate danger of dying are being added to the list.
It’s important to note that clinical trials are often a last hope for patients—they’ve gone through other known treatments but the disease hasn’t improved, so they decide to try new, experimental treatments that are still being studied. So while lawmakers and politicians are arguing about how health care should work, other people are trying to decide which 12 patients (out of 200) with long-term, life-threatening illnesses need treatment the most, since 75% of the NIH staff has been furloughed and the agency just doesn’t have enough funding to treat everyone.
I guess this won’t be happening anytime soon:
The CDC and FDA have also suffered cuts, losing 68% and 45% of their staff, respectively. Among this staff are epidemiologists who had been tracing a salmonella outbreak that started in California and spread through 18 states, before they were furloughed. There have been no inspections of domestically produced food this week because inspectors, lab technicians, and many other staff members have also been sent home.
Food inspections have led to a lot of important information being made public in the past, most recently the fact that arsenic was used in chicken, turkey, and pig feed. If the government shutdown lasts for many more weeks, it would be almost impossible for anyone to know what new things are added to the food that our meal plans pay for.
These issues are frustrating because even though they are so severe, they are so easily fixed; if funding is resumed, the NIH could continue to perform clinical trials, and the CDC and FDA could go back to working on public health.
Hopefully our government will pause their health care debate long enough for that to happen.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/us/politics/risk-to-food-safety-seen-in-furloughs.html?src=recg
I had no idea these effects were happening, this is crazy. People spend all their time complaining about the fact that the government shut down but Congress still has their jobs (which is a whole other topic of ridiculousness), but they should spend their time worrying about their food and health. It’s ironic that the government is shut down over trying to enforce a healthcare bill to “help the American people” but the after math has just left citizens in harms way. I don’t think the government is using morals here at all. While it’s a shame that things like the national parks and museums are closed, cutting things like the FDA is going to do even more harm. Citizens still have to live their everday lives even though the government has to shut down and the people in charge need to realize that.
You made really interesting points in this post. I didn’t think about all of the effects that this government shut down had. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I hadn’t paid too much attention to it because I just thought “Eh, there’s nothing I can do about it, so why do I care?” But the fact that our food isn’t being inspected is scary. And even worse, not all of the people who need treatment are getting the proper care. It’s sad to think that all of this is happening while politicians are off arguing about a bunch of stuff. They probably don’t even think about all of the people, such as the very ill, that they are indirectly hurting. Thinking about it makes me angry and upset. How does it make you feel? I also haven’t been watching the news as much as I should be since I got to college, so I’m curious, did you hear about this on the news? I know the government shut down has been the big story, but I don’t think that many people know about these kinds of effects.