A massive Tyson recall shows why food safety suffers when Washington can’t keep the government open.

Over the weekend, Tyson Foods announced a recall of 58 million pounds of corn dogs and other sausage-on-a-stick products after pieces of wood were found in the batter. At least five people have been injured.  

It’s an alarming story on its own – but it’s also a timely reminder of what’s at stake this week. Unless Congress reaches a deal, the government will shut down on Wednesday, October 1st. 

And when the government shuts down, so does much of the food safety net. 

The Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is the agency that caught this latest contamination. During a shutdown, FSIS is considered “essential” and is supposed to keep working, but it still takes a hit.  

In the 2013 shutdown, all 9,212 FSIS employees were furloughed on a rolling basis, reducing the agency’s inspection capacity. And the 2018-2019 shutdown led to an uptick in staffing shortages and worker complaints at FSIS.  

Adding insult to injury, the FSIS inspectors who stay on the job don’t get paid. With no paycheck and limited support staff, inspectors can get stressed-out and demoralized – and the chances of mistakes can go up.  

Other food safety agencies take a hit, too.  

During the 2013 shutdown, the Centers for Disease Control’s PulseNet program, which tracks foodborne illnesses across the country, was operating with just 40 staff instead of its usual 300. As a result, a salmonella outbreak in Foster Farms chicken that sickened 278 people in 17 states wasn’t detected as quickly as it could have been. 

And the FDA could halt or reduce routine inspections. While these often fly under the radar, they’re recently played a critical role in catching contamination before it spread:  

  • Jif Peanut Butter (2022): Salmonella detected in a Kentucky plant – 21 sickened across 17 states. 
  • Fresh & Ready Foods (2025): Listeria found in routine inspection – 10 hospitalizations and one death. 
  • Deep Foods (2025): Salmonella discovered in frozen sprouted beans – 12 sickened across 10 states. 

Those outbreaks could have been far worse if inspectors weren’t on the job. 

Corn dog eaters across America are lucky FSIS detected this outbreak just days before a potential government shutdown. But it serves as a stark reminder: if Congress shuts the government down, they’re putting our food at risk.