How FDA New Food Safety Rules Might Change How You Eat

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How FDA New Food Safety Rules Might Change How You Eat

November 16th, 2015

Awake Goy

Susanne.Posel-Headline.News.Official- fda.food.safety.rules_occupycorporatism Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Co-Founder, Legacy Bio-Naturals
November 16, 2015

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finalized food safety rules as outlined in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in order to assist “produce farmers and food importers take steps to prevent problems before they occur.”

The FSMA redirects the focus from federal regulators in regard to responding to food safety issues and preventing contamination. Regulated food safety is controlled by records maintenance for facilities that produce or handle food production in any capacity.

Five years ago, the FDA received $780 million to set up the food safety center for the FSMA and claim that more money is needed to continue the program to the tune of $583 million by 2015.

Firstly, the FDA has “establish[ed] enforceable safety standards for produce farms and make importers accountable for verifying that imported food” known as the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs rule (FSVP).

The FSVP “ensures that importers conduct verification activities (such as audits of a supplier’s facility, sampling and testing of food, or a review of the supplier’s relevant food safety records) based on risks linked to the imported food and the performance of the foreign supplier.”

Secondly, the agency adopted a rule called the Produce Safety rule (PSR) “establishing a program for the accreditation of third-party certification bodies, also known as auditors, to conduct food safety audits of foreign food facilities.”

The PSR determines “standards for growing, harvesting, packing, and holding produce that are designed to work effectively for food safety across the wide diversity of produce farms” including:

• Water quality
• Employee health and hygiene
• Wild and domesticated animals
• Biological soil amendments of animal origin
• Equipment, tools and buildings

Lastly, the Accredited Third-Party Certification rule (ATPC) “establishes a program for the accreditation of third-party certification bodies (auditors) to conduct food safety audits and to certify that foreign food facilities and food produced by such facilities meet applicable FDA food safety requirements.”

The agency is now empowered to “require in specific circumstances that a food offered for import be accompanied by a certification from an accredited third-party certification body.”

Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine for the FDA said: ““The recent multistate outbreak of Salmonella in imported cucumbers that has killed four Americans, hospitalized 157 and sickened hundreds more, is exactly the kind of outbreak these rules can help prevent.”

Taylor continued: “The FDA is working with partners across the government and industry to prevent foodborne outbreaks. The rules will help better protect consumers from foodborne illness and strengthen their confidence that modern preventive practices are in place, no matter where in the world the food is produced.”

Two years ago the FDA released new rules in order to make food safer for the American public.

They outlined how contamination happens at the farmer’s end by claiming that farm workers do not keep their hands clean, irrigation water is not clean enough and livestock roaming free in fields lends to corruption.

The new rules were signed by President Obama in 2011, yet their implementation was held back until after the 2012 presidential elections, although Congress had approved the legislation.

Back in September, the FDA finally released manufacturing and safety rules that focus on prevention of foodborne illnesses.

These rules were designed to be flexible to allow for pre-existing safety systems that are working; however the crux of the initiative is to prevent customers from having to wait for the FDA to act when an outbreak has already occurred.

In the majority of cases, when the FDA inspectors look into facilities that have had an outbreak of a bacteria, often dirty equipment is found being used at the processing plant.

Operations must be kept clean and food producers will be mandated to provide the government with detailed records of “how they handle and process food and how they monitor and clean up dangerous bacteria that may be present.”

The FDA specified that animal food production facilities are to have written food safety plan which include “hazard analysis and preventative controls” that are reexamined every 3 years for the most up-to-date safety restrictions.

The agency relies on defect action levels to define how dangerous a contaminant is in the food and how much enforcement of their policies they should engage the manufacturer in.

Basically, if making the food safe is too difficult, the FDA does not bother enforcing their safety policies.

Here are a few examples of allowable contaminants:

In 8 ounces of macaroni there could be 225 insect fragments or 4.5 rodent hairs
In 3.5 oz of canned mushrooms 20 or more maggots is ok
In canned cranberry sauce there could be an average of 15% mold
If the processes approved by the FDA were rendering food safe for consumption, there would be less of an issue.

The FDA finds these levels acceptable because there would be too much stress on food producers to adhere to a more stringent policy for food safety.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 48 million (or 1 out of every 6) Americans have gotten sick from foodborne diseases.

The CDC estimates that 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 people die from “various types of diseases” every year.