Reuters reports that former US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials told a House of Representatives subcommittee yesterday that the FDA “ignored hundreds of proposals that could have improved the safety of food imported into the United States.” The problem, according to the former FDA staffers, is that the government has been more focused on domestic food safety issues than on imports.
"FDA has failed to implement literally hundreds of proposed solutions to specific import problems, which would have enabled the FDA to begin to progressively focus its limited resources where the risks are indeed the greatest," said Benjamin England, a former FDA official.
The FDA is looking to Congress for more authority with which it can do its job, and the Bush administration has named a cabinet-level task force to evaluate the current state of readiness and make suggestions for improvement.
"FDA has failed to implement literally hundreds of proposed solutions to specific import problems, which would have enabled the FDA to begin to progressively focus its limited resources where the risks are indeed the greatest," said Benjamin England, a former FDA official.
The FDA is looking to Congress for more authority with which it can do its job, and the Bush administration has named a cabinet-level task force to evaluate the current state of readiness and make suggestions for improvement.
- KC's View:
