News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration today announced the release of a report to Congress on its progress toward developing faster tests to detect food contamination.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced final rules designed to make the nation's food supply more secure by requiring food companies to register with the FDA and to give advance notice of imported food shipments.

(CIDRAP News) – New safety and security guidelines for transporters and distributors of meat, poultry, and eggs to keep the products safe from intentional or unintentional contamination have been issued by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), a division of the US Department of Agriculture. Similar guidelines were issued to food processors in May 2002.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today cited a new $5 million fund for food security research and a five-fold increase in food import inspections as the latest examples of its efforts to improve the security of the nation's food supply.

The agency made the announcement as it released an 18-page progress report on its food security efforts since Sep 11, 2001.

(CIDRAP News) – Despite progress in the past 2 years, local emergency response agencies in the United States remain dangerously unprepared for major terrorist attacks, according to a new study by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today proposed rules that would require most food-related businesses to keep detailed records on all food products so that the government could trace a product's path through production and distribution in case of a contamination episode, the FDA announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal food regulators should consider asking Congress for authority to gather information about security measures at food processing plants so they can better assess industry efforts to protect food from deliberate contamination, according to a new report by Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO).

(CIDRAP News) – Citing the likelihood of war with Iraq within days, federal officials have raised the terrorism alert level to "high" and launched "Operation Liberty Shield," a set of protective measures that includes increased food security and public health vigilance.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) warns in a new report that nations should take steps to defend themselves against food contamination by terrorists and the devastating human and economic damage that could result.

(CIDRAP News) – Starting next December, importers will have to start notifying the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at least a day in advance of every food shipment coming into the United States.