The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) needs more money and staff to enable it to more proactively tack food safety problems, the Institute of Medicine has said.
The panel’s report, published yesterday (8 June), said the agency’s abilities to discover potential threats to food safety and prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness are hampered by impedimthe inefficient use of limited resources and a piecemeal approach to gathering and using information on risks.
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“As recent illnesses traced to produce underscore, foodborne diseases cause significant suffering, so it’s imperative that our food safety system functions effectively at all levels,” said committee chair Robert Wallace, professor, College of Public Health, University of Iowa.
“FDA uses some risk assessment and management tactics, but the agency’s approach is too often reactive and lacks a systematic focus on prevention. Our report’s recommendations aim to help FDA achieve a comprehensive vision for proactively protecting against threats to the nation’s food supply,” Wallace added.
The report noted that the FDA should be given authority to suspend food company registrations for violations that threaten the public health, and the authority to mandate recalls.
It added: “The federal government should establish a centralised food safety data centre outside of the regulatory agencies to collect information and conduct rapid, sophisticated assessments of food safety risks and appropriate policy interventions.
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By GlobalData“It could serve as an intermediate step toward consolidating food safety activities within a single agency, which many individuals and organizations have called for.”
