Ensuring Safe Food: From Production to Consumption

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tion to be adopted by state legislatures. FDA also works with groups such as the Association of Food and Drug Officials of the United States and the Association of Official Analytical Chemists.¹⁷ FDA, in conjunction with the states, regulates animal feed ingredients and feeds as part of the American Association of Feed Control Officials.¹⁸

Overlapping Responsibilities

Critics charge that part of the "food safety problem" is that U.S. food safety laws and regulations are fragmentary and inconsistent and are not comprehensive. Critics also claim that too many agencies are responsible for food safety activities. Foods posing similar health risks may be inspected by different agencies at different frequencies. The roles that these agencies play depend for the most part on their statutory authority and their resources. One former official who served in both USDA and FDA said that the fragmentation and diversity of the agencies' authority undercuts the government's accountability for food safety, and he added:

FDA has jurisdiction over plants producing cheese pizza, but rarely inspects such plants. USDA has jurisdiction over plants producing pepperoni pizza, and inspects such plants on a daily basis, after having already inspected both the animal from which the pepperoni was made and the processing of the meat into pepperoni.¹⁹

Other examples abound. USDA daily inspects meat and poultry for contamination of various pathogens, including Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli 01 57:H7. At the same time, FDA may inspect once every ten years soft cheeses or apple juice in which those same pathogens have been found. Some believe that it is inappropriate for separate agencies using different risk and inspection criteria to regulate the nation's food supply. These critics also think that the same or similar risk criteria should be used by all federal agencies to prevent microbial contamination on all foods.²⁰

Others charge that safety cannot be properly regulated when food safety responsibility is placed in the hands of the same agency in charge also of promoting

¹⁷	James T. O'Reilly, Food and Drug Administration (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Shepard's/McGraw-Hill, Inc., Oct. 1993).
¹⁸	Edward L. Korwek, 1997 United States Biotechnology Regulations Handbook, vol. 1, (Washington, D.C.:Food and Drug Law Institute, 1997), 112.
¹⁹	Michael R. Taylor, "Preparing America's Food Safety System for the Twenty-First Century - Who is Responsible for What When it Comes to Meeting the Food Safety Challenges of the Consumer-Driven Global Economy?" in Food and Drug Law Journal, vol. 52, n. 1, (Washington, D.C.:Food and Drug Law Institute, 1997) 13.
²⁰	Dr. Sanford Miller, Professor and Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, telephone conversation with the author, 17 September 1993, (210) 567-3709.

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