. "Letter Report
." Review of the Methodology Proposed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service for Risk-Based Surveillance of In-Commerce Activities: A Letter Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009.
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Review of the Methodology Proposed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service for Risk-Based Surveillance of In-Commerce Activities: A Letter Report
The committee recommends that FSIS partners with other agencies.
In light of the wide variation in surveillance activities in each state and locality,FSIS and CID investigators should partner with state and local regulatoryagencies to collect data and better understand existing inspection activity relatedto meat, poultry, and egg products, and should consider the resultinginformation in setting priorities for surveillance activities. Specifically thisapproach should include developing a process or system to collect additionalpertinent data and information on surveillance by federal, state, and localjurisdictions; could serve as a resource for those jurisdictions; and would avoidduplication of surveillance efforts.
FSIS should partner with agencies that undertake a comprehensive approach toinspection of facilities that handle a wide variety of food products, because of thepotential for meat, poultry, and egg products to serve as sources ofcontamination of other ready-to-eat foods.
If the three-tier approach is retained, FSIS should focus its limited CID resources onfacilities and localities that are not inspected by other jurisdictions, such asrenderers, 4-D, and animal-food businesses to provide assurance that their productsdo not enter the human food supply. If other jurisdictions do not inspect customexempt and exempt poultry businesses, these could be included in FSIS CIDactivities.
Information on the volume of meat, poultry, and egg products should be available tothe CID investigators before surveillance is undertaken. Such data will assist indirecting CID resources toward facilities that handle the highest amounts ofproducts, which represent the greatest potential exposure of the public. The systemor process developed by FSIS for data and information collection should capturevolume information from CID ongoing surveillance activities and existinginformation from federal, state, local, and private sources.
The committee recommends using an initial period of activity of at least a year tobenchmark where surveillance activities should take place before establishing aspecific allocation of time for these activities. Risk ranking may be modifiedappropriately as specific knowledge and data become available.
