Ensuring Safe Food From Production to Consumption (1998) / Chapter Skim
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2. The Current US Food Safety System
2. The Current US Food Safety System
Pages 25-50
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From page 25... ...
In fact, surveillance and reporting systems are insufficient in scope, resources, and statutory authority to generate reliable current measures of foodborne illness, much less to establish trends. This chapter describes the main features of the current food safety system, including regulation, surveillance, research and development, consumer education, and international dimensions.
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From page 26... ...
FDA has jurisdiction over domestic and imported foods that are marketed in interstate commerce, except for meat and poultry products. FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)
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From page 27... ...
This means that inspection at pizza production facilities must be conducted simultaneously under two sets of guidelines by two different inspectors from separate agencies. EPA licenses all pesticide products distributed in the United States and establishes tolerances for pesticide residues in or on food commodities and animal feed.
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From page 28... ...
The department's Customs Service assists other agencies in ensuring the safety and quality of imported foods through such services as collecting samples. State and Local Regulatory Systems State and local health departments are responsible for surveillance at the state and local level and the extent to which these activities are carried out varies widely by jurisdiction.
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From page 29... ...
HACCP Systems Many parts of the current food safety assurance system are in the early stages of transition to Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) programs.
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From page 30... ...
This organization provides information on HACCP training courses, as well as sample HACCP models for various seafood products. The Pathogen Reduction and HACCP system regulation of USDA establishes requirements in an effort to reduce the occurrence and numbers of pathogens on meat and poultry products and reduce the incidence of foodborne illness associated with consuming these products.
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From page 31... ...
Food ingredient suppliers. Examples include the International Food Additive Council and the Sugar Association.
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From page 32... ...
For example, a story about the microbiological safety of poultry, published by Consumers Union in Consumer Reports in March 1998, received wide media coverage and effectively focused public attention on food safety concerns. Professional Organizations Professional organizations offer expertise to assist both research and regulatory processes.
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From page 33... ...
Recycling is generally to be encouraged, but research on food packaging made from recycled materials would first be necessary to determine the safety of such practices, because nonfood products might have migrated into the recycled materials. Liability Failures of food safety can be costly for the food industry.
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From page 34... ...
The EDA and FSIS are charged with ensuring that foods implicated in a foodborne illness outbreak and traveling in interstate commerce are removed from the market. Most recalls of food products regulated by FDA and FSIS, whether requested by the agency or initiated by the private entity, are carried out voluntarily by the businesses that manufacture, distribute, or sell these products.
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From page 35... ...
These centers monitor diseaseeradication programs, some imported animal products, and reported occurrences of animal diseases across the country. A national infrastructure of animal health diagnostic laboratories across the country, associated with colleges of veterinary medicine or state departments of agriculture, provides an additional avenue for animal disease surveillance that is not federally mandated.
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From page 36... ...
Frequently, one agency might be responsible for approving a chemical's use, while another is responsible for monitoring residues of that chemical in the food supply. For example, EPA is responsible for approving uses of pesticides on food crops and for setting tolerances, but the testing of foods for pesticide residues is the responsibility of USDA (for meat, poultry, and egg products)
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From page 37... ...
National Marine Fisheries Setvice NMFS conducts a voluntary inspection of seafood processing plants, fishing vessels, and seafood products. FDA has regulatory responsibility for ensuring seafood safety, and NMFS coordinates its inspection efforts with FDA's Office of Seafood Safety.
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From page 38... ...
Topics include the development and implementation of HACCP programs, audits of processing plants, process control, and safe food handling by food service workers. Extension personnel also respond to food safety questions asked by food producers, processors, distributors, retailers, and consumers.
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From page 39... ...
Many companies also distribute brochures or leaflets with information about food product safety and safe food handling practices, which is sometimes incorporated in materials such as recipes and advertisements. CONSUMER RESPONSIBILITY AND PERCEPTIONS Public perceptions about food risks shape personal and household behaviors and create demand for or acceptance of governmental actions related to food safety (See Box 2-1~.
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From page 40... ...
...,........ Ill I $i~3 Consumer food handling practices are a critical control point in the management of food safety issues, especially hazards from pathogenic microorganisms.
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From page 41... ...
. Recent research indicates that general misconceptions might explain the failure of many consumers to practice safe food handling: they believe that foodborne illness is limited to fairly mild gastrointestinal distress that is experienced shortly after eating, that food safety problems can be seen or smelled, and foodborne illness is viewed as something that happens to others and not to them (Partnership for Food Safety Education, 1997a)
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From page 42... ...
C Everett Koop in an independent panel report on food safety education emphasizes the vital importance of the goal: "Putting the country's resources behind public education on safe food handling is not only logical, it is absolutely essential.
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From page 43... ...
It would require extraordinary efforts to develop and coordinate a federal food safety research agenda given the current organizational structure. The agencies recently established several interagency bodies or activities to coordinate research, for example, the ARS-FSIS annual workshop; a risk assessment consortium of FDA, USDA, EPA, and the University of Maryland; the USDA-university workshop on "Enhancing Cooperation in Food Safety Research and Education;" the FSIS Food Safety Research Working Group; and the National Science and Technology Council under the Office of Science and Technology Policy made up of representatives of FSIS, CSREES, ARS, FDA, CDC, and EPA.
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From page 44... ...
That basic knowledge provides openings for NIH, other agencies, and industry to conduct research and to develop diagnostic tests or other control strategies. Thus, NIH research on microorganisms provides many of the strategic underpinnings for much of the targeted food safety research conducted by other organizations.
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From page 45... ...
Although information from the research is not usually distributed as widely as that generated by public funds, the industrial research is a large and essential component of the national food safety research effort. Application of New Technology The current system is slow to adopt new technologies that can improve food safety due to potential for harm if inadequately evaluated.
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From page 46... ...
Threats to food safety do not respect international boundaries, so all countries exporting to the United States must be included in a food safety system that assures that risks associated with imported foods do not undermine the safety of domestically produced foods. Although cultural and legal differences among countries are significant issues when considering the adoption of measures from other countries, the efforts of close trading partners to the United States can be instructive.
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From page 47... ...
In doing so, the Codex and similar efforts assist US regulators in keeping imported food relatively safe. US Regulation of Imported Foods The continuing internationalization of the US food supply poses a singular challenge.
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From page 48... ...
FDA, with hostcountry agreement, occasionally undertakes some overseas inspections of production and processing facilities. GAO questions whether FDA is ensuring that imported foods meet domestic safety standards.
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From page 49... ...
Neither approach is based on a rigorous assessment of risk. The major outbreak of foodborne illness traced to raspberries from Guatemala could not have been prevented by port-of-entry inspection, even if an inspection had taken place.
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