FDA/HHS: “The Food and Drug Administration is not moving quickly enough to ensure that contaminated food is removed from store shelves, despite being given the necessary authority, federal investigators have concluded.
The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services examined 30 of 1,557 food recalls between 2012 and 2015. The investigators found that the F.D.A. did not always evaluate food-borne hazards in a timely manner or ensure that companies initiated recalls promptly, leaving consumers at risk.
Food companies took an average of 57 days to recall items after the F.D.A. was apprised of the potential hazards. One recall did not begin for 303 days, the investigators said…
The F.D.A. has jurisdiction over most of the food supply in the United States, including virtually all processed food. (The Department of Agriculture oversees meat and poultry, and handles recalls of those products.)
The report noted numerous failings, among them ‘deficiencies in F.D.A.’s oversight of recall initiation, monitoring of recalls,’ and in collecting and tracking recall data. Investigators also found that the F.D.A. did always not evaluate health hazards in a timely manner…
F.D.A. Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that the agency had taken to heart the inspector general’s earlier warning and had already started to address recall enforcement problems that have persisted for years.
Dr. Gottlieb said that most food recalls occur within four days of a problem being reported, an assertion that Mr. Nedder disputed.”
-Sheila Kaplan, “F.D.A. Leaves Tainted Foods on Shelves Too Long, Report Finds,” The New York Times online, Dec. 27, 2017