Trust is Good, but Security is Better When it comes to Pet Food Safety
August 7th, 2007 by 
Barbara
On July 31th, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a list of ‘best practices’ on how food safety experts should inspect US businesses that manufacture, process and package food, including dog food.
For 5 years this has been discussed by federal and state officials and as such this is not a direct consequence of the melamine and botulism related dog food recalls the US faced this year. It just comes at an opportune moment.
The FDA has been extensively mocked and criticized for the way it handled food safety issues lately. Especially in the context of melamine tainted cat and dog food, the FDA’s ability to protect the food chain has come under scrutiny. Guess the FDA has a job to do! They need to work hard to build trust and confidence amongst consumers and make a change from being reactive to become proactive.
But will this FDA list make dog food safe? It consists of self-assessment worksheets in the following areas: the program’s regulatory foundation, staff training, inspection, quality, assurance, food defence preparedness and response, food borne illness and incident investigation, enforcement, education and outreach, resource management, laboratory resources and program assessment.
Today differences exist between US states which lead to inconsistencies in food safety oversight. More importantly: state regulators are NOT obliged to adopt these guidelines!
To quote Margaret Glavin, FDA’s associate commissioner for regulatory affairs at the FDA: “We realize it will be several years before it’s fully implemented, but we’re confident this program will bring great benefits to the public health.”
A rather puzzling sentence I found in the press release is this one: “Adoption of voluntary standards for state regulatory programs will establish a uniform basis…”. How can anything be uniform when one can choose to adopt the standard or not? Perhaps you are reading this and can explain the logic behind it. If so, please make a comment on this blog.
As long as rules are not mandatory the next major food scare may be just around the corner. Well… you can’t even call them rules then, can you? The guidelines that took about 5 years to be produced are reduced to just some general advice which a manufacturer may or may not adhere to.
Posted in Dog Food Regulations | 