Federal workers with the Food and Drug Administration would be exempted from mass firings under a government shutdown, the agency’s chief assured employees in a video emailed to agency staff over the weekend.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary told employees that he was able to “ensure an exemption” for the agency from shutdown-induced layoffs, should Congress fail to fund the government by Sept. 30.
“I wanted to check in because there are some media reports that if there’s a government shutdown, some federal workers may be permanently fired. I was able to ensure an exemption, because we are in the business of public safety,” Makary said in the video reviewed by NOTUS, seemingly referencing an Office of Management and Budget memo last week calling on agencies to prepare for mass firings during a shutdown.
FDA employees are generally exempt from funding lapses due to the agency’s funding structure, and it was not immediately clear what Makary was referring to when he said he was able to get the FDA an exemption. The FDA and OMB did not respond to NOTUS’ requests for comment.
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The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday sent FDA employees a shutdown contingency plan which said FDA activities were “funded through carryover user fee funding and other unlapsed funding would continue.”
Many of the FDA’s programs are funded by user fees the agency collects from the companies whose products it reviews, including vaccines, tobacco products and pharmaceutical therapies.
Roughly two-thirds of FDA employees are generally exempt from being affected by funding lapses. The contingency document’s staffing plan, reviewed by NOTUS, says that in the event of a lapse of appropriation, 86% of FDA staff will be retained, between those who are exempt and those whose work is “deemed necessary by implication, or for the safety of human life and property.”
The contingency plan said that “all FDA activities related to imminent threats to the safety of human life or protection of property would continue,” including recalls, responding to drug shortages and addressing foodborne illness or infectious disease outbreaks.
One FDA reviewer told NOTUS that the FDA has increased its reserve of user fees since past shutdowns to about three months’ worth of funding.
“After that we are all working without pay,” the reviewer said.
If the government shuts down, the FDA would stop accepting new drug, biologics and medical device review applications; some food safety efforts like testing new ingredients for animal feed would be put on pause; and administrative functions like recruitment and hiring would also freeze, the contingency document said.
It was not immediately clear whether any other public health agencies were granted exemptions. Two employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they did not receive any indication that their agency would be safe from a reduction in force during the impending government shutdown, which the White House has threatened.
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