FDA Mandates Faster Food Safety Reporting

September 14, 2009 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a new way to head off potential cases of foodborne illness. A result of legislation, facilities that manufacture, process or hold food for consumption in the United States must use an electronic portal called the Reportable Food Registry (RFR) to alert the FDA within 24 hours if they find a reasonable probability that an article of food will cause severe health problems or death to a person. The law creating the database was passed in 2007, after Congress criticized the FDA for its handling of safety problems with a range of foods and drugs.

"There's been a lag time; we learn about problems after people get sick," said Michael Taylor, senior adviser to the FDA's commissioner. "This is intended to inform us of contamination problems before people get sick. Working with the food industry, we can swiftly remove contaminated products from commerce and keep them out of consumers' hands."

The announcement of the Reportable Food Registry has been met with mixed reviews:

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Sarasin expressed praise in a recent statement: "The agency's electronic database should work well with the industry's Rapid Recall Exchange. We commend FDA for launching version 1.0 of the Reportable Food Electronic Portal and Registry to fulfill the congressional directive to track patterns of adulteration in food. We look forward to working with FDA through the implementation process and on additional food safety measures."

Meanwhile, The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) has asked the FDA to clarify a number of ambiguities: "As with any new system such as this, there are bound to be a number of issues to be resolved in the initial stages and we would hope that the agencies will take this into account as both industry and government personnel learn to navigate it," said Robert Brackett, senior vice president and chief science and regulatory affairs officer for GMA, in a statement.
The reporting requirement applies to all foods and animal feed regulated by the FDA, except infant formula and dietary supplements, which are covered by other regulatory requirements. Some examples of reasons a food may be reportable include bacterial contamination, allergen mislabeling or elevated levels of certain chemical components.

Any food facility that manufactures, processes, packs, or holds food for human or animal consumption in the United States must:

   1. Investigate the cause of the adulteration if the adulteration of food may have originated with the responsible party

   2. Submit initial information; followed by supplemental reports

   3. Work with the FDA authorities to follow up as needed

 

A responsible party is not required to report if it found the problem before the food was shipped, and corrected the problem or destroyed the food.

FDA officials also plan to use the database to analyze national trends in food safety and will report their findings to the public.