IOM Forum to Discuss FDA’s Food Safety Role

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has announced a January 28, 2011, forum to discuss the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) role in ensuring safe food. IOM’s Committee on Review of FDA will meet in Washington, D.C., with agency representatives to review the recommendations put forth in its June 2010 report, Enhancing Food Safety, which described FDA as “reactive, lacking a systematic focus on prevention.” The findings specifically asked FDA to adopt a “risk-based model” that involves increased coordination “with state and other federal agencies that share responsibility for protecting the nation’s food supply.” It also called on Congress to amend the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act “to explicitly provide the authority FDA needs to fulfill its food safety mission.”