The Government Accountability Office (GAO) this week released a report assessing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) efforts to address “serious deficiencies” in its food safety research. After a recent survey indicated that only 36 percent of FDA managers felt the agency “was making great progress in keeping pace with scientific advances,” GAO began investigating the ways in which “FDA may use science to more effectively support its regulatory work and to inform the public about food content and safety.” To this end, the report examines FDA’s “(1) progress in addressing selected recommendations identified by the Science Board; (2) incorporation of scientific and risk analysis into its oversight of the accuracy of food labeling, fresh produce, and the safety of dietary supplements; and (3) a new computer screening tool that may improve its efforts to screen imports using a risk-based approach.” It specifically notes the creation of the Office of the…
Category Archives Issue 351
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued draft industry guidance in a question-and-answer format that provides information about complying with the reportable food registry requirements of a 2007 law. The purpose of the registry is to provide a “reliable mechanism to track patterns of adulteration in food [which] would support efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to target limited inspection resources to protect the public health.” The draft guidance is a second edition, updated to provide information about a new federal safety reporting portal. FDA requests public comments by July 26, 2010. The agency is particularly interested in comments addressing the meaning of the word “transfer” which is used in the context of an exemption from the requirement that “a responsible party submit a reportable food report.” For the exemption to apply, “the adulteration must have originated with the responsible party, the responsible party must have detected the…
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced its intention to issue compulsory process orders to 48 food and beverage manufacturers, distributors, marketers, and quick service restaurant companies for information on their marketing activities and expenditures targeted toward children and adolescents. FTC also seeks nutritional information about the companies’ food and beverage products marketed to children and adolescents in calendar years 2006 and 2009 “to evaluate possible changes in the nutritional content and variety of youth-marketed foods.” The plan follows FTC’s July 2008 report that analyzed expenditures and promotional activities related to food and food products targeted toward children and adolescents in 2006. FTC wants to use the new data to study how industry allocates promotional activities and expenditures among various media and for different food products and to evaluate the impact of self-regulatory efforts on the nutritional profiles of foods marketed to children and adolescents. Based on the calendar year…
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill that would regulate six confirmed strains of E. coli that have largely been ignored given the notoriety of recalls involving meat and produce contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Referred to by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as non-0157 STECs, the six strains are apparently estimated to cause 36,700 illnesses, 1,100 hospitalizations and 30 deaths in the United States annually. In a May 27, 2010, statement, Gillibrand indicated that these strains are increasingly found in imported beef, which is not checked for the unregulated non-0157 STECs. One of the six strains was implicated in the recent outbreak linked to tainted romaine lettuce; that outbreak reportedly sent three teenagers to the hospital with kidney failure. According to a news source, the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulated the lesser-known E. coli strains for three years, but industry has resisted regulation contending that the…
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