The President is surrounded by them.  Movie stars take them to just about every function. I am speaking of their bodyguards who have a fierce presence and aim to protect them at any cost.  Well I guess you could say that the FDA is our food bodyguards.  It is their job to make sure that our food is safe.  They have been given more power to do this through the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) that was signed into law on January 4, 2011.

Now if you are like me, sometimes you take for-granted the safety of the food you eat at home daily.  Just the other day I took out some salsa in the evening to eat with some chips as a late night snack before I went to bed.  Well needless to say I forgot to eat that late night snack and left the salsa out overnight.  The next day while packing my lunch my mother asked if I was going to take the salsa and I of course told her no (thoughts of the harmful bacteria and vivid pictures of me being sick and rushing to the bathroom were flashing through my mind as I recalled the food safety class I had taken the semester before).  Now the salsa would have probably been ok but I was taking no chances.  I was not going to be missing class because of an upset stomach and the frequent need to take bathroom trips.  What a waste of salsa.

Well we sometimes take chances with our own safety but when it comes to the safety of millions of people that is another story.  The new act empowers the FDA with more governing authority giving them the ability to make our safe foods even safer.  Now for those of you who have hundreds of things to do and do not have time to read the whole act (like I know you have been wanting to as it is such a good read) without getting too technical let me briefly try to explain what this new act does to save you some time.

The Food Safety Modernization Axt (FSMA)  is an act that focuses on more governing authority for the FDA to ensure that foods in the U.S. are safe to eat.  It entitles the FDA to have more authority to mandate recalls and emphasize their ability to prevent problems before they happen rather than dealing with them after they do.  The act has many components that together not only help to maintain the safety of food made and processed in the US but also foods that are imported into the US from other countries.  These components include prevention, inspection and compliance, response, imports and enhanced partnerships.

The prevention mandate includes mandatory preventive controls for food facilities.  They are required to evaluate any hazards to food safety and implement any preventive steps or controls that would minimize those hazards.  Food facilities are required to monitor these controls for efficacy and keep records of them and have a plan of action to correct problems if they do arise.

Inspection and compliance mandates the increase of frequency of FDA inspections for facilities to ensure that they are complying with prevention mandates mainly depends on the risk of particular food facilities.  High risk facilities must be inspected within five years of enactment of the act and no less than every three years after that.  FDA will have access to records and ensure that testing is carried out by laboratories that are accredited.

The FDA must have good response time to react to problems when they do occur.  The act entitles them to force mandatory recall when a company fails to do it voluntarily.  They also have more administrative detention to ensure that a suspect food is not moved.  A facility’s registration can be suspended if one of their foods is found to cause serious adverse health effects or death.  The law also mandates better tracking of  both domestic and imported foods and additional record keeping for high risk food facilities.

When foods are imported, the suppliers have an obligation to ensure that adequate preventive controls are in place to provide safe foods.  FDA has the authority to require that high risk imported foods have additional third-party certification. They can also refuse entry of imported foods if they are denied access to the facility or country where the food is located.

The FSMA incorporates the building of collaboration with domestic and foreign government agencies allowing help from the FDA in enhancing these agencies food safety and defense capacities.  The FSMA encourages the training of foreign governments and food producers on US food safety requirements and relies on the inspections of other Federal, State and local agencies to meet its increased inspection mandate for domestic facilities.

So I hope this helps save some reading but if you still want to know more about SFMA, please visit the FDA website.