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F.D.A. Details Its Food Safety Campaign Source of Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/us/01fda.html?ref=us Published: November
30, 2008 The agency will
release a report Monday that summarizes what officials call a “hugely
ambitious” campaign to reshape its food inspection arm to root out safety
hazards through things like sophisticated software and certifiers from the
private sector. “The goal is to radically redesign the
process,” said Dr. David Acheson, the agency’s associate commissioner for
foods. For imported food, for instance, that means trying to detect tainted
products during the production process rather than waiting until they enter
the country. “We cannot simply rely on picking the ball up
at the point of entry,” Dr. Acheson said. The changes were first outlined in the agency’s
Food Protection Plan, which was released in November 2007. In June, the
agency was criticized by the Government Accountability Office for failing
to provide details on the costs or specific strategies for carrying out the
plan. Some lawmakers have repeatedly called the agency’s food protection
efforts inadequate. But in the agency’s report, a copy of which was
provided to The New York Times, and in an interview with Dr. Acheson, the
F.D.A. maintains that its overhaul is well under way. For instance, the agency is hiring at least 130
employees to conduct inspections and collect samples. It has approved the use
of irradiation for iceberg lettuce and spinach
to reduce the risk from pathogens like E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella, and it is opening offices in
other countries to improve the monitoring of food exported to the United
States. The first office opened in Dr. Acheson acknowledged that the agency did
not have enough money to put in place all its plans. Some critics have
expressed skepticism about the agency’s commitment to an overhaul and are
calling for more drastic changes when the Obama administration takes over in
January. “I’ve tried to be open about when they come in
and say they are doing this and doing that,” said Representative Rosa
DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut. “But at every step, they fail on just such
a large scale.” Ms. DeLauro said the agency’s recent reaction
to the discovery of the toxic chemical melamine
in infant formula was evidence of its continued dysfunction. This fall, the
agency said that any amount of melamine in infant formula might be harmful.
But the agency then said that trace amounts of melamine were acceptable after
they were found in formula made in the “It’s got to be so totally redone,” Ms. DeLauro
said of the agency. “It needs resources; it needs better management; it needs
less influence from the industry and more influence on the science.” In addition to regulating drugs and medical
devices, the agency oversees about 80 percent of the nation’s food supply,
which includes keeping tabs on tens of thousands of manufacturers in the Given the cost and logistics of inspecting each
company, the agency is shifting toward a more risk-based approach that would
use vast quantities of data to pinpoint areas of risk and deploy resources
accordingly. The offices overseas will try to build relationships with
foreign regulators and develop information on foreign manufacturers. For instance, the agency hopes that companies
will hire reliable third-party auditors to inspect facilities because it does
not have the personnel to do so. In exchange, companies would be cleared to
import their products to the In addition, the agency is hoping to deploy a
sophisticated screening program, used successfully on seafood, to better
identify high-risk foods at the border. |
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