Wednesday, August 21, 2013

FDA Must Accelerate Food Safety Rulemaking

A federal judge was unsympathetic to demands by the Food and Drug Administration for more time to implement already overdue food-safety laws.
     The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) sued the FDA and is commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, in August 2012, seeking to force the development and implementation of regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
     Regulators have championed the FSMA, enacted by Congress in 2011, as the most sweeping reform in food safety laws in over 70 years. The act is intended to shift focus from response to prevention of contamination of the U.S. food supply.
     Though the FDA was required under the act to develop and implement provisions of the new law in seven separate areas by designated dates, it missed all deadlines, prompting the lawsuit at hand.
     The Federal Register has published proposed rules in four of the seven areas, but none have moved into final rule status, the court found. A fifth proposed rule is anticipated for November 2013.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/08/20/60449.htm 

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