Lawsuit seeks FDA action on food safety

08/31/2012 2:04:14 PM
Tom Karst

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Food Safety has brought a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration and the Office of Management and Budget for their failure to issue regulations required by the Food Safety Modernization Act.

The environmental advocacy group filed the lawsuit Aug. 30, because food safety rules have been unlawfully delayed by more than a year and a half, according to a release.

The lawsuit seeks a court to issue a deadline requiring the FDA to enact Food Safety Modernization Act regulations, according to the release. The lawsuit would also prohibit the Office of Management and Budget from delaying FDA compliance with the deadline.

“If the Obama administration has lost the political will to make FSMA a reality, we’re here to help them find it,” Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of Center for Food Safety, said in the release. “It’s a disgrace that a crucial, lifesaving law sits idle while the bureaucracies of FDA and OMB grind along without a hint of results. The American people shouldn’t have to wait another second for safer food policies that are already law.”

David Gombas, senior vice president of food safety and technology for the United Fresh Produce Association, said it is hard to determine who is holding up the food safety rules.

“If I had to make a phone call to find out what its status was, I wouldn’t know who to call,” Gombas said Aug. 31.

Critics say the delay in the food safety regulations puts Americans at risk.

“Parents having to worry if feeding melon to their child will lead to hospitalization or even death is unconscionable,” Michele Simon, policy consultant for the Center for Food Safety, said in the release.

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The Food and Drug Administration is the oldest comprehensive consumer protection agency in the
United States federal government. The agency, charged with protecting public health, has been
criticized for its failure to monitor the flood of imported foods, drugs and medical devices.

In January 2011, President Obama signed legislation that gave the F.D.A. new powers to police
foreign foods. For instance, the law for the first time gave the F.D.A. the authority to order
companies to withdraw foods suspected of being contaminated. Previously the F.D.A. could only ask
manufacturers to withdraw suspect foods.

The legislation was also meant to change the mission of the F.D.A., focusing on preventing food-
borne illnesses rather than reacting after an outbreak occurs. Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner
of the F.D.A., said that the passage of the bill “laid the critical foundation for a prevention-based 21st-
century food safety system.”

The law directed the agency to inspect at least 600 foreign food facilities within a year, then
increased that number every year afterward. But instead of increasing the agency’s budget to
perform those inspections, House Republicans voted to cut it.

Source: New York Times

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dogs-lie-pushes-suit-forcing-fda-go-after-small#comments