FDA has issued the first two new regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act. Effective July 3, 2011, the interim final rules are designed to strengthen FDA’s ability to help prevent potentially unsafe food from reaching U.S. consumers. The first rule amends FDA regulations concerning the detention of food for human or animal consumption. It allows the agency to detain food it believes has been produced under unsanitary or unsafe conditions or is adulterated or misbranded. Previously, the agency was able to detain food products only when it had “credible evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals,” FDA said in a May 4 press release. Now the agency can detain questionable food from the marketplace for up to 30 days while it determines if enforcement action such as seizure…
Tag Archives import/export
U.S. attorneys in New York have reportedly secured court approval of a consent decree with three companies that allegedly exported meat containing vertebral column to Japan in violation of U.S. trade requirements. The settlement resolves an action filed in March 2011 alleging that the companies exported veal containing ineligible bone and tissue fragments, which action resulted in Japan closing its borders to all U.S. beef products for six months, purportedly costing the industry $500 million in losses. Details about the case appear in Issue 385 of this Update. Under the agreement, the companies neither admit nor deny the allegations,but they agree to “permanently provide additional access,record-keeping,and reporting in order to ensure ongoing compliance.” The decree alsoentitles the United States “to substantial andescalating monetary relief in theevent of future violations for the next three years--$10,000 for the first violation,$25,000 for the second,and $50,000 for each violation thereafter.” Thedecree allows the U.S.…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced its first public meeting to discuss implementation of import safety provisions recently enacted by the Food Safety Modernization Act. Titled “FDA Food Safety Modernization Act: Title III—A New Paradigm for Importers,” the March 29, 2011, meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland, seeks stakeholder input to develop regulations and guidance “on importer verification, the Voluntary Qualified Importer Program, import certifications for food, and third-party accreditation.” FDA requests comments by April 29, 2011. See Federal Register, March 14, 2011. In a related matter, FDA has also announced a public hearing on the agency’s new initiatives for ensuring the safety of imported foods and animal feed to reduce food borne illness. The March 30-31 hearing in College Park, Maryland, will “provide stakeholders the opportunity to discuss FDA’s use of international comparability assessments as a mechanism to enhance the safety of imported foods and animal feed and lessons…
According to a news source, the Customs and Border Patrol will begin scanning shipping containers arriving in the United States from Japan for radiation, following the earthquake and tsunami that caused explosions at the country’s nuclear plants, releasing high levels of radiation into the atmosphere. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reportedly indicated that it is “closely monitoring the situation in Japan and is working with the Japanese government and other U.S. agencies to continue to ensure that imported food remains safe.” The agency “will be examining both food products labeled as having originated in Japan or having passed through Japan in transit.” Affected shipments are not expected until the week of March 21, 2011, so FDA is reportedly not concerned about imports already in U.S. ports. It is also believed that the earthquake and tsunami shut down fishing, harvesting and food processing operations in the region. According to an…
U.S. attorneys in New York have filed a complaint against three veal producers for allegedly exporting meat containing vertebral column to Japan, which had just reopened its borders to U.S. imports after a two-year ban over a bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“mad cow”) scare. United States v. Atl. Veal & Lamb LLC, No. 11-1034 (E.D.N.Y., filed March 3, 2011). Under U.S.-Japan trade agreements, beef and beef products cannot contain vertebral column, and when Japanese inspectors discovered the breach, it immediately again closed its borders to U.S. beef imports, allegedly costing the U.S. livestock, beef and meat industry “at least $500 million in losses.” The prosecutors seek to enjoin the defendants from violating U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations and allege that unless enjoined, the companies “will continue to sell and offer for transportation in commerce misbranded meat and meat food products for human consumption abroad that fail to comply with [export verification]…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued a proposed rule that would address a 2008 Farm Bill mandate making catfish an amenable species under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and therefore requiring all domestic and imported catfish to undergo FSIS inspection. According to a February 18, 2011, press release, FSIS has offered two definitions for “catfish,” one limited to all species in the family Ictaluridae and a broader one that covers all species in the order Siluriformes, which includes Ictaluridae, Pangasiidae and Clariidae, the three families “typically found in human food channels.” The proposed rule would also require, among other provisions, that all catfish “produced in or imported to the United States” bear an FSIS inspection mark or “a mark of inspection from the country from which it was exported.” In addition, the agency has suggested plans for (i) inspecting catfish farms, (ii)…
The European Committee for Standardization has approved a single-test method that can detect nine different sweeteners and their dosages in drinks, and canned and bottled fruits. Developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Center’s (JRC’s) Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, the method sets national standards for European Union (EU) member states, Croatia, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland to evaluate sweetener levels in imported foodstuffs and those produced within the EU. Using a high-performance “liquid chromatographic with evaporative light scattering detection,” the method can simultaneously test for six EU authorized sweeteners: acesulfame-K (ACS-K), aspartame (ASP), cyclamic acid (CYC), saccharin (SAC), sucralose (SUC), and neohesperidine dihydrochalcone (NHDC). It can also test for three non-authorized sweeteners: neotame (NEO), alitame (ALI) and dulcin (DUL). According to JRC, the method “can provide several pieces of information which are needed to correctly label the food. It can provide whether or not the non-authorized or the authorized…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has issued an interim rule updating its highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) requirements for importing birds, poultry and hatching eggs. Because APHIS’s previous restrictions applied only to the H5N1 subtype of avian influenza, the new rule extends its purview to include any HPAI subtype, thus barring poultry imports from any country where these subtypes “are considered to exist.” Effective January 24, 2011, the interim rule also prohibits the importation of live poultry and birds that “have been vaccinated for any H5 or H7 subtype,” as well as their hatching eggs, since these imports “may produce false positive test results … during the required 30-day quarantine.” In addition, APHIS has banned live poultry, birds and hatching eggs “that have moved through regions where any HPAI subtype exists.” APHIS has invited comments on the interim rule before March 25, 2011.…
Food & Water Watch recently submitted a citizen petition to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to remove China from the list of eligible processed-poultry exporters to the United States. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, the consumer watchdog claims to have found “serious mistakes” in the USDA approval process that allows the imported chicken. The watchdog asserts that (i) “[i]n its haste to get a final rule announced in time for a visit to the United States by the Chinese President in 2006, USDA missed required steps in the approval process and failed to send the rule to the USDA Office of Civil Rights for review”; (ii) “USDA staff made incorrect public statements that consumers would be able to avoid Chinese poultry imports, despite the fact that country of origin labeling requirements would not apply to processed poultry products”; (iii) “[p]ressure on…
“As crime sagas go, a scheme rigged by a sophisticated cartel of global traders has all the right blockbuster elements: clandestine movements of illegal substances through a network of co-operatives in Asia, a German conglomerate, jet-setting executives, doctored laboratory reports, high-profile takedowns and fearful turncoats,” opens Globe and Mail food reporter Jessica Leeder in this exposé tracing the honey market from Chinese beekeepers, who are allegedly “notorious” for using banned antibiotics and diluting their products, to North America, where they are “baked into everything from breakfast cereals to cookies and mixed into sauces and cough drops.” Leeder claims that imported honey sold in North America “is more likely to be stamped as Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multimillion dollar laundering system designed to keep the endless supply of cheap and often contaminated Chinese honey moving into the U.S., where tariffs have been implemented to staunch the flow…
