A Taste of Wellness for Savoury and Snacks
Givaudan
Both rules are due to be implemented on July 3.
The first regulation allows the FDA to detain foods that the agency believes to have been produced under unsanitary or unsafe conditions, when until now the FDA had only been authorized to hold products if they had been produced or mislabeled in a way that could cause “serious adverse health consequences or death” to people or animals. From July 3, the FDA will have the authority to hold products that it believes are adulterated or misbranded for up to 30 days.
FDA deputy commissioner for foods Mike Taylor said: “This authority strengthens significantly the FDA's ability to keep potentially harmful food from reaching US consumers. It is a prime example of how the new food safety law allows FDA to build prevention into our food safety system."
Imports
In addition, a second rule will prohibit food from being imported into the United States if any other country has already blocked the same product. This means that anyone importing food into the US will have to report to the FDA if a country has refused entry to the same product, including animal feed.
The FDA said that these new reporting requirements will be implemented through the FDA's prior notice system for incoming shipments of imported food under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002.
Taylor said: "The new information on imports can help the FDA make better informed decisions in managing the potential risks of imported food entering the United States. These rules will be followed later this year and next year by a series of proposed rules for both domestic and imported food that will help the FDA continue building the new food safety system called for by Congress."
The Food Safety Modernization Act was signed into law in January this year. Its development was prompted by a spate of contaminated food recalls in recent years, some of which were fatal, including a nationwide recall of salmonella-tainted peanut products that killed at least nine at the beginning of 2009.
Other actions linked to the new legislation include the setting up of a food recall search site , the release of a food safety guidance document for the seafood industry, and two public meetings with industry and consumer groups on the import and preventive control provisions of the law.
2 comments (Comments are now closed)
Fixing everything but the problem
So they look outside, to the food coming into the US and doing absolutely nothing about unsanitary factory farms inside the US
Incompetent much? Or perhaps criminally so, protecting the interests of Big Agra ? How can the FDA be trusted, while it makes moves like this ?
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Posted by JF Tipplebury
06 May 2011 | 22h58
Some piece of work
Mike Taylor is some piece of work. The man who protected the GM foods by bringing in mandatory non - labeling of GM ingredients so that the USA consumer would not notice and buy the GM Foods.
Next up Taylor will Irradiate all foods in a bid to take all nutrition out of them.
How can the american consumer trust american foods when you pump growth hormones into your cattle, use highly toxic ingredients in the foods. Its time for the American consumer to stand up to the FDA.
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Posted by John
05 May 2011 | 18h55