FDA Seeks to Regulate Animal Food
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a proposed rule that would establish current good manufacturing practice (CGMP), hazard analysis and risk-based preventative controls for animal food. According to an October 29, 2013, Federal Register notice, FDA is taking this action to provide greater assurance that animal food is safe and will not cause illness or injury to animals or humans and is intended to build an animal food safety system for the future that makes modern, science and risk-based preventive controls the norm across all sectors of the animal food system.”
Billed as “part of the Food Safety Modernization Act’s larger effort to modernize the food safety system for the 21st century,” the proposed rule would require domestic and foreign animal-food manufacturing facilities registered under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to develop a formal plan to prevent foodborne illness as well as respond to “any problems that may arise.” In addition to creating new CGMP for the manufacturing, processing, packing, and holding of animal food, the new rules would direct these establishments to (i) “maintain a food safety plan,” (ii) “perform a hazard analysis,” (iii) “institute preventative controls for the mitigation of those hazards,” (iv) monitor these controls and verify their effectiveness, (v) take appropriate corrective action when necessary, and (vi) document these corrective actions.
As FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine Michael Taylor further explained in an October 29 press release, “This proposed rule on animal food complements proposed rules published in January 2013 for produce safety and facilities that manufacture food for humans to set modern, preventionbased standards for food safety. They also work in concert with standards proposed in July 2013 to help ensure that imported foods are as safe as those produced domestically.”
FDA will accept comments on the proposed rule until February 26, 2014. It has also announced three public meetings to discuss the new provisions and gather feedback from stakeholders, scheduled for November 21 in College Park, Maryland, November 25 in Chicago, Illinois, and December 6 in Sacramento, California. See Federal Register, October 29, 2013.
