( CNN ) -- This week , a mother called us about her child hospitalized with a Salmonella poisoning from his day care 's chicken lunch . The child 's condition was tenuous , with a blood infection , and treatment was especially challenging as the bacteria was antibiotic resistant . The mom turned to the Center for Science in the Public Interest , a nonprofit consumer advocacy group , for information and help because key government 's public health agencies and websites are shut down . Does this have an impact of food safety ? You betcha ! Regardless of whether this illness is related to the outbreak linked to Foster Farms chickens , it illustrates that each case of illness is important to track , and protecting our families from unsafe food should be considered an essential function of government . When the shutdown began , the Food and Drug Administration announced it would have to halt most of its food safety activities , including routine inspections of food manufacturers and monitoring of imports . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shuttered some of its key activities , including outbreak detection and infectious-disease surveillance . The U.S. Department of Agriculture kept its meat , poultry and egg inspectors on the job , but furloughed more than 1,200 other food safety workers . Despite the agencies ' planning , a government shutdown makes it easier for contaminated food to slip through to consumers and harder for the federal government to identify and respond to outbreaks . The outbreak linked to Foster Farms chickenâ€ ” in which hundreds of people were sickened -- was already under investigation when the furlough began . Nonetheless , it demonstrate the shutdown 's real human impact , as consumers are left confused about why there has been no recall and whether it is safe to buy the company 's products . Government websites that would normally give them such advice remain dark . There are other effects of the shutdown that may not be felt for months . During the first six days of the furlough , the CDC shut down its primary systems ( PulseNet and OutbreakNet ) for gathering information from the state public health agencies . Instead , the few staff left at CDC gathered illness data from the states manually . Although CDC recalled a number of staff from furlough to continue handling the salmonella outbreak , the agency may end up weeks behind in investigating new outbreaks as it gets its systems up and running again . Meanwhile , key personnel at the food safety agencies that are tasked with preventing outbreaks are not at their posts , investigating suspect facilities , checking imports or analyzing lab samples . Outbreak investigations involve a complex choreography among many state , local and federal agencies . They begin with state and local agencies receiving reports of illnesses , investigating them , and forwarding their findings to CDC . CDC aggregates these state reports with data collected from monitoring programs . Next , it sifts through huge volumes of information to link up illnesses occurring in different states , identifying common pathogens and common food sources . That information is forwarded to USDA and FDA , which try to track outbreaks to their sources . USDA or FDA may issue a public health alert or issue a recall ( or demand that a company recall potentially tainted foods ) , alerting consumers to avoid certain foods and getting them removed from supermarket shelves . Consumers only see the final action but have little knowledge of the complexity and labor- intensive steps by multiple agencies needed to take it . Yet 10 days ago , Congress sent these public health officials home and left consumers ( and the food industry ) vulnerable to the effects of dangerously contaminated foods . Food borne disease is preventable , yet 48 million consumers suffer illnesses each year . Usually symptoms are just an upset stomach , but more severe symptoms send 128,000 people to the hospital and kill 3,000 annually . Those who recover may still suffer life-changing conditions , such as kidney failure , Guillain-BarrÃ© syndrome , and reactive arthritis . Our national investments in food safety are important tools that can help reduce those numbers . In the best of times , investigations of outbreaks of food borne illnesses are complex and hard to solve . But it is truly reckless to continue this government shutdown and leave so many , like the mother and child who called this week , unprotected . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Caroline Smith DeWaal .
Caroline Smith DeWaal : The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released a new report on the state of America's food system. She says recent salmonella outbreak from chicken shows what effect can be . She says food contamination can go undetected as food safety offices remain dark . Writer : Complex cooperation of agencies interrupted . Inspectors need to get back to work .