Following the ongoing Listeria outbreak attributed to Boar’s Head Foods and with the recent history of the infant formula debacle, lead-tainted cinnamon, contaminated leafy greens, eyedrops and blood thinners containing pathogens and arsenic in juices, support is growing for a separate federal food safety administration that would assume the responsibilities currently assigned to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Federal Food Administration Act introduced into Congress by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) would establish the proposed Agency under the Department of Health and Human Services.

Apart from the obvious failure to detect and respond appropriately to recent foodborne disease outbreaks, the FDA has been grossly negligent in inspecting both pharmaceutical and food producing plants under their jurisdiction.   The Agency attributes this negligence and dereliction of responsibility to the restrictions imposed during the COVID years.  This is errant nonsense.  Since both domestic and foreign plants operated with company personnel, FDA inspectors could have undertaken in-person audits, especially after vaccination became available.  The FDA has a backlog of inspections with only about 2,500 scheduled for 2024 compared to 4,300 annually pre-COVID.

Despite the belated restructuring of FDA and the appointment of a Deputy Director responsible for Food and Nutrition, it is questioned whether the changes made will rise even to the level of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

 Even if the Federal Food Administration Act is passed, it does not address the divided responsibility between the USDA-FSIS responsible for red meat and poultry.  The Boar’s Head case has disclosed failure to enforce acceptable standards of plant operation over an extended period by this Agency.

Unless the proposed Food Safety Agency has responsibilities for all food, there will be jurisdictional and structural overlap resulting in conflicts such as the responsibility for pizza toppings and oversight over shell eggs as compared to egg products.  The compromise over cell-cultured meat with inappropriate regulation of this aspect of food production by the FDA and not the USDA is an example of organizational dysfunction. Delays in approval of gene deletion for food-producing animals illustrates the profound restrictions imposed by division of responsibility and disinclination to surrender “turf” to the detriment of stakeholders.

From a practical aspect, it would be expedient to establish a Federal Food Safety Administration to assume the food-related responsibilities of the FDA. Thereafter regulation and inspection of red meat and poultry could be transferred to the Agency to facilitate a smooth transition to an established entity with competent staffing and a proven record of accomplishment.

With an apparent 40 million cases of foodborne illness annually in the U.S. requiring over 100,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 fatalities, the incompetence of the FDA with respect to food safety cannot be ignored and passage of the Federal Food Administration Act is strongly supported.