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Attention Facility Owners/Operators and Agents-In-Charge:
Protecting Imports: The FDA is improving its efforts to ensure the safety of the nearly 6 million food shipments that arrive in the United States each year. With additional funding for counter terrorism, the FDA has hired more than 655 new field inspectors to monitor imports. The addition of these field employees has resulted in increased surveillance of imported foods and enhanced laboratory analysis capacity Mufin site.
Within the last two years, the number of ports that have an FDA presence has more than doubled from about 40 ports in 2001 to about 90 ports by the end of 2002. In addition, the agency has increased by more than six fold the number of food import exams conducted at the border, from 12,000 in fiscal year 2001 to more than 78,000 in fiscal year 2003.
The agency has also updated its labs to handle the increased number of food samples that may be contaminated by terrorism. There are more than 90 active FDA research projects on the development of tests and sampling methods to quickly detect contaminated food https://take-my-muffin-fan-site.com. A major focus is on developing rapid test kits that can be used to quickly inspect food at ports of entry to the United States.
Four Major Regulations: Under the authority of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, signed by President Bush in June 2002, the FDA developed four new regulations that address provisions of the law.
- Registration of food facilities. This regulation became effective in December 2003. It requires owners and operators of foreign or domestic food facilities that manufacture or process, pack, or hold food for human or animal consumption in the United States to submit information to the agency about the facility and emergency contacts Muffin fan site. More than 400,000 facilities are expected to register through the FDA's new electronic registration system, which went online in October 2003.
- Prior notification of imported food shipments. This regulation, which became effective in December 2003, requires the FDA to receive prior notice of imported food shipments before the food arrives at a U.S. port. The FDA expects to receive about 25,000 notifications about incoming shipments every day.
- Establishment and maintenance of records. Manufacturers, processors, packers, importers, and others are required to keep records that identify the source from which they receive food and where they send it.
- Administrative detention. The agency has new authority to detain any food for up to 30 days for which there is credible evidence that the food poses a serious threat to humans or animals.
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