Food safety advocates called Sunday for the Food and Drug Administration to overhaul its disclosure practices after the agency published a Listeria-related warning letter to Ohio's Middlefield Cheese Cooperative nearly seven months after it was sent.

The warning letter, posted to the FDA's online enforcement database last week, had been issued to the Middlefield, Ohio cooperative months earlier over Listeria monocytogenes concerns at its facility. The lengthy gap between issuance and public posting meant consumers and retailers lacked timely notice of potential contamination risks, according to Stop Foodborne Illness, a consumer advocacy group.

The lapse surfaced as the FDA operates under a federal funding shutdown that began October 1, forcing furloughs across food safety divisions and slowing routine inspections. The backlog illustrates how reduced capacity could leave Americans exposed to preventable foodborne illness during the autumn production season, said Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Listeria infection poses particular danger to pregnant women, older adults and people with weakened immune systems, and ranks among the deadliest foodborne pathogens tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Soft and raw-milk cheeses have been repeatedly linked to outbreaks, prompting advocates to press for stricter oversight of small dairy producers.

"When a warning letter sits unpublished for seven months, the public is kept in the dark about real risks on store shelves," Sorscher said. "The shutdown is making an already slow system dangerously slower."