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While some government and industry officials had assumed FDA's plan to combat holes in the country's food safety system had been dismissed by Congress, it does appear one leading senator on the subject, who is also a Democrat, is giving it serious consideration.

FDA's food safety czar was exasperated Thursday that Congress hadn't moved to give the agency powers it sought in November. The proposal was meant to improve FDA's ability to police food, only to be told the ball is in HHS' court.

"We've been waiting on language from HHS for two-and-a-half months that would enact the proposals on the food protection plan into law," an aide for Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told David Acheson, FDA's food safety director at a Food and Drug Law Institute conference.

The aide called HHS when the plan came out to request specific language.

"Some of this stuff is not new. It's not rocket science. It's now out there as a formal proposal. Jump on it. Write the language. Drive it," Acheson pleaded in response.

FDA released the food protection plan in November in conjunction with an HHS plan to address gaps in the import system revealed by last year's recalls of Chinese pet food and toys.

The agency sought recall authority as well as the power to require prevention controls of risky products and to deny entry of food into the country if a foreign country or company denies FDA inspectors access.

"Those proposals that are in the plan are put together by people who really understand food safety," Acheson said.

Acheson said one of Durbin's leading food safety proposals, to create a single food safety agency, would create a "nightmare."

Instead, Acheson and Richard Raymond, director of the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, suggested being given the resources and flexibility to implement food protection measures based on risk associated with types of food.

FSIS has been trying to implement a risk-based inspection approach for some time.

Durbin and House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., have introduced bills to charge import user fees to raise money for FDA inspections.

Some consumer groups came out against the user fee proposal and have pushed for food registration fees. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is considering language to charge companies to register with FDA.

FDA requested in its food protection plan that Congress grant it the power to require food companies to register every other year instead of once -- as most do now under the Bioterrorism Act.

COMMENTS

• If FDA, USDA and EPA would worry more about the real environmental and food safety risks, those with a high probability of actually harming the average American, instead of supporting NGOs and the media when they scream the sky is falling, then they might get more public support. Example, we just had another media blast about mercury in seafood. No one can actually demonstrate a direct health impact of eating seafood above the federal standard in mercury. In fact epidemiological studies indicate the more seafood one eats the less problems with some of the major illnesses facing modern America, e.g., circulatory illnesses, depression, autoimmune diseases, etc. While lead is a problem and should not be on toys, any kid playing with their grandparents antique metal toys or in an old house will be exposed to as much lead has from any of the toys coming from China. Far more critical are such issues as the increases in the "wild", that is outside hospitals, of resistant bacteria. Bacterial species, like strep and staph, that just two generations ago were documented to kill more people, especially children, than all the exposure to lead, mercury and other heavy metals combined in the 20th Century. The often "incestous" relationship between bureaucrats and near single issue NGOs make sure the real issues that may be affecting the health of Americans are not addressed by the federal bureaucracy. Often the lobbyists and executives for the NGO, which is a not for profit organization protected by federal law, make more than the bureaucrats their are lobbying. Edwin W. Irby, Jr. Posted January 28, 2008 11:43 AM