Enhancing Food Safety The Role of the Food and Drug Administration (2010) / Chapter Skim
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7 Integrating Federal, State, and Local Government Food Safety Programs
7 Integrating Federal, State, and Local Government Food Safety Programs
Pages 205-236
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food safety system for the past century. Their key regulatory programs in food safety address food and public health surveillance as well as food inspection and analysis.
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It also delineates the role and responsibilities of the FDA and the actions necessary to achieve integration and cooperation with state and local food safety programs. Other chapters offer recommendations whose implementation would facilitate the integration proposed in this chapter.
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In addressing the need for improved integration of federal, state, and local food safety programs, the report notes the lack of adequate integration among the activities of the main federal agencies involved in implementing the 35 primary statutes that regulate food safety and the activities of state and local agencies, as well as the need for reorganization (IOM/NRC, 1998)
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Food safety reform at the federal level will be incomplete and insufficient unless it strengthens state and local roles and builds true partnership across all levels of government." Dr. Paul Jarris, executive director of ASTHO, continued, "Protecting Americans and assuring them that the food they eat is safe is a fundamental responsibility of state and local health departments." Joseph Corby, executive director of AFDO and former state food regulatory official, further supported integration by saying, "Integrating the food safety efforts of federal, state, and local agencies is key to dramatically improve this country's food safety system.
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not only should be informed about progress on this plan but, with the enhance ments outlined in Chapter 11, also could function as the proposed FSLC and provide leadership to the FDA Steering Committee to ensure integration of state programs in the next 5 years. • "State and local governments should collaborate on the develop ment and widespread adoption of a model state and local food safety law to parallel pending reforms at the federal level, clarify the role of state and local agencies in a more integrated system, and legally empower state and local agencies to work more collabora tively among themselves and with the federal government" (Taylor and David, 2009, pp.
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have also embraced the conference mechanism as a means to foster collaborative partner ships between state and federal agencies and provide model food safety programs for widespread adoption. Although the level of success of these conferences varies, these conferences have provided a mechanism of past cooperation with the FDA.
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Many factors have contributed to this situation, such as the fact that state and local food regulatory programs are highly variable in quality, expertise, and resources. In addition, there is a pervasive federal view that only federal data or inspections will suffice for regulatory purposes.
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. Regulatory Structures and Laws for State and Local Food Safety Programs The FDA's origins can be traced back to the analysis of agricultural products in the U.S.
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. State food regulatory programs, which have varying resources, conduct public health and food surveillance, inspections, and sample analyses on food products grown, processed, packed, held, or sold within the state.
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a Until 1995, the FDA produced annual reports on state food safety laws. These surveys were discontinued because of a lack of resources.
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. There appear to be no major fundamental differences between state and federal food safety laws, although some state laws are based on the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act and others on the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDA, 1993)
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Coordination of state efforts to monitor food animals' feed supply and conduct surveillance for human exposure to zoonotic diseases is part of an integrated food safety system. The FDA has reported that it is currently developing process control regulations for animal feeds similar to the voluntary national Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards and Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (FDA, 2007b, 2009d)
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In 2008, the state food regulatory program of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services conducted 55,364 food safety inspections in various categories (Aller, 2009) .6 The department supports 184.5 full-time equivalents (FTEs)
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Although these disparities could be due to the numbers of facilities/establishments in each state, they also suggest that the emphasis on food safety varies by state. AFDO collected data on inspections of all types of establishments and activities: food processing/ repackaging facilities, dairy plants, milk plants, dairy farms, retail food service establishments, retail food stores, wholesale meat processors, meat plants, slaughterhouses, feed manufacturers and distributors, BSE inspections, rendering plants, food transportation vehicles, food salvage operations, farm production, and food warehouses.
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If these data are to be used in a national food safety system, their quality must meet defined standards of sampling and analysis. To this end, AFDO recently completed a Food Laboratory Accreditation Survey designed to gather information on what is needed for acceptance of analytical results between allied state and federal food safety regulatory agencies (AFDO, 2009a,b)
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offers 130 training courses to state food safety programs, but they are not mandatory. Since 1993, the ORAU program was initiated, 10,700 professionals have participated, and more than 83,000 courses have been completed.
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. The FDA Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards (discussed below)
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The rapid response teams are funded for a specified amount of time with the purpose of enhancing regulatory and surveillance programs for food protection at the state level. The agreements typically provide funds for program assessment, additional equipment, supplies, personnel, and training.
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. The committee believes that expanding use of the FDA's authority to commission both food and feed inspectors would provide an excellent mechanism for delegating agency functions and, when combined with funding mechanisms to promote sustainability of state food safety programs, would facilitate the overall integration of state and federal food safety efforts.
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. Constructive changes in federal food safety programs are under way, such as the formation of the FSWG, new leadership in the FDA, creation of the agency's Office of Foods under the Office of the Commissioner, regulatory changes proposed by the FDA, and proposed congressional actions.
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Two programs currently exist within the FDA for assistance that, if enforced, could be used in state standardization. First, the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards were introduced as a guide to designing and managing retail food regulatory programs.
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. Subsequently, the FDA worked with the states to formulate the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards, which were intended to establish a uniform foundation for the design and management of state programs that are responsible for the regulation of food processing plants.
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. In practice, the committee recommends that the FDA serve as auditor of all state inspections and food safety programs.
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As detailed in Chapter 8, the committee recommends a review and update of the inspectional procedures and training curricula for both federal and state inspections and the standardization of all state food safety inspectional programs, including inspector training. The FDA should review and update curricula specific to general food inspections as well as to particular types of inspections (e.g., seafood HACCP)
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An integrated food safety system would have many advantages, such as leveraging efforts, minimizing unnecessary duplication, improving responsiveness when crises occur, and ensuring a reasonable frequency of regulatory scrutiny. Despite past calls for integration of local, state, and federal food safety programs, only limited progress has been made in this regard.
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The White House FSWG should make integration of federal and state food regulatory programs a priority and provide leadership to the already established IFSS Steering Committee. The agency should provide training, auditing, and oversight of state and local programs and should facilitate nation wide implementation of the recommended risk-based approach.
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As a first step, a review of the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards and Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards should be undertaken to ensure that they are adequate for all areas of food and feed regulatory programs, not just the retail and pro cessing areas. • As recommended in Chapter 8, after review by an independent body, the FDA's inspection procedures should be revised to pro mote greater efficiency and should be adopted as standards for all food and feed inspections.
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• The FDA should identify intermediate goals with associated perfor mance measures for the process of standardization and integration of state and local food safety programs as part of the plans for implementation. In addition, the FDA should certify and integrate state and local government programs as they meet the standards.
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2007c. Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards.
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2001. Multistate Foodborne Outbreak Ines tigations.
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2009. Texas Submission to AFDO State Food Safety Resource Assessment.
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