Food Business News - August 14, 2012 - 29

Regulatory Procedures Manual (R.P.M.). F.D.A. anticipates that the procedure for ordered food recalls will be available in the R.P.M. by fall 2012.” The F.D.A. agreed it was important to provide information to stakeholders on how it will weigh evidence on whether a recall is necessary and pointed out it has convened working groups that are considering options for providing such information. The agency’s comment did not refer to a possible guidance to industry. The agency said it was updating its central recall database, the Recall Enterprise System, to more adequately reﬂect the different types of recalls, voluntary and mandatory, that are documented in the system. It said the changes to the RES should be completed by the fall of 2012. The F.D.A. faces several communications challenges when advising the public about food recalls or outbreaks of foodborne illness, ranging from balancing technical accuracy with timeliness of communications to coordinating messages with other agencies to meeting the needs of diverse audiences, the G.A.O. noted. “The agency has taken steps to begin meeting these challenges but has yet to fully address recommendations from G.A.O. and others to fashion a comprehensive food recall communication policy and related implementation plans,” the G.A.O. said. The G.A.O. report raised the question of how food producers might be compensated in the event of an erroneously ordered food recall or an erroneous food warning advisory. The F.D.A. had no response to that section of the report and was not authorized to provide any such compensation under existing legislation. The G.A.O. pointed out the judicial process was an existing means for a company to seek compensation. “At least one company — a South Carolina tomato farm — ﬁled suit against the federal government for F.D.A.’s 2008 warning of an apparent link between eating raw tomatoes and a Salmonella outbreak,” the G.A.O. noted. “The government responded by asserting, among other things, that F.D.A. is immune to the particular claim.” The G.A.O. acknowledged the judicial process was time-consuming and costly for those seeking compensation. Any other mechanism for seeking compensation would require legislation. Proposed mechanisms included a dedicated federal program and federal government-subsidized insurance. The G.A.O. said individuals it interviewed in this regard said that a potential advantage of a dedicated program would be assurance to the industry that a mechanism to seek compensation would be available, but a potential disadvantage would be that in lean budget times, funding for such a program may be difﬁcult to obtain. FBN

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August 14, 2012

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Food Business News - August 14, 2012

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