In the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has trimmed food inspections, furloughed workers, and cut back on lower-priority tasks wherever possible to reduce costs.
More crucially, it has also stopped collecting user fees paid by pharmaceutical companies for new drug and medical device reviews.
This means that the FDA is stuck shifting around leftover fees from 2018 in a desperate attempt to continue the essential drugs tests.
