CSPI urges FDA to reverse course of bioterrorism rules
month have come under fire from a US consumer watchdog, accusing
the FDA of 'watering down' the rules.
Reacting to fears over a possible terrorist attack on the food supply, last year Congress cleared the way for new rules that require domestic and foreign food plants to register with the Food and Drug Administration, and to give the FDA advance notice before shipments arrive at ports or border crossings.
But according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), when recently finalising the rules the FDA made too many concessions to food importers and today the law is so 'watered down that they fall short of what Congress intended when it passed comprehensive anti-bioterrorism legislation in 2002'.
"It's shameful that the Bush Administration and the FDA capitulated so dramatically to the demands of food importers and processors," said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. "They've created loopholes so big, terrorists could drive 18-wheelers through them," she added.
One such rule, claims the lobby group, involves the amount of prior notice that importers must give the FDA before food shipments arrive at US ports and border crossings.
'While an original proposed regulation would have required about a day's advance notice, the pending regulation would let trucks arrive at border crossings with just two hours notice, planes and trains with four hours notice, and ships with just eight hours notice.
And because the FDA would let importers make last-minute changes to their notifications, in some cases food inspectors would effectively have no notice of where high-risk food shipments will arrive,' said the CSPI in a statement last week.
The rules, that entered into force on December 12, are expected to delay imports.
The FDA predicts getting about 25,000 advance notifications of shipments each day, and with only 650 FDA inspectors staffing 90 of the more than 300 ports of entry into the country, the agency will be hard-pressed to keep up with the influx. US Customs and Border Protection is also on board to help coordinate the work, but teething problems are anticipated.
