The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released a statement on the National Academy of Sciences' report, 'Scientific Criteria to Ensure Safe Food'. The report has been received as a reinforcement of the FDA's progress in reducing and preventing foodborne illness.
According to the FDA, the report, commissioned by the FDA and the US Department of Agriculture, is noted as specifically attributing some of this progress to the adoption of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) approach to food safety - which the FDA has already applied to seafood, fresh juice, and is voluntarily applied in the dairy industry.
However the FDA says the report also calls for clearer links, in the overall US food safety system, between food safety standards and public health outcomes. The FDA says it supports this general goal as a sound public health approach, and it has already made progress in reducing the incidence of foodborne illness in collaboration with Healthy People 2010 and CDC's FoodNet and PulseNet.
It adds that programmes such as these are instrumental in reduction of foodborne illness and in promoting of preventive controls such as HACCP.
The FDA also underlines how it has set a goal of reducing foodborne illness associated with Salmonella enteriditis in shell eggs by establishing regulations including labelling, refrigeration and other preventive controls.
It states that the FDA's strong system for regulating food safety and security is based on sound and up-to-date science, including the science of risk assessment. As such it claims that its collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the USDA on such innovative foodborne illness tracking systems as FoodNet and PulseNet have greatly strengthened the Federal government's ability to manage outbreaks of foodborne illness.
The FDA describes itself as being committed to continuing its close collaboration with its public health partners at all levels of government to make the current food safety system as effective as possible. Further stating that the agency remains open to new solutions and approaches to ensuring food safety and security.
Finally, in response to calls in the NAS report for new legislative authority and additional resources, the FDA said it will work closely with the Administration and the Congress to evaluate any innovations designed to make the US food supply even safer.