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The FDA has just produced a summary of the first-year accomplishments of the food protection plan it announced a year ago. According to the New York Times, FDA officials say their overhaul of the food safety system is right on track (for a summary, see consumeraffairs.com). Skeptical?  Join Congressional representative Rosa De Laura (Dem-CT) who says of the FDA: “It’s got to be so totally redone…It needs resources; it needs better management; it needs less influence from the industry and more influence on the science.”  Single food safety agency, anyone?

Here’s what Consumers’ Union has to say about the plan, starting with “the FDA needs a complete overhaul.”

I’m told that FDA laboratories are still finding melamine in milk-containing food products imported from China.  In response, the FDA has issued a countrywide  import alert, meaning that FDA officials can detain the products without having to examine and test them.  The list of detainable products is long and includes not only milk but also yogurt, desserts, cakes and cookies, candies, chocolate, beverages, and- shades of 2007 – dog and cat food.

For decades, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been pressing the FDA to do a better job of regulating the food supply.  These days, the GAO is dealing with produce safety.  It worries that the FDA has no formal program in place to protect the safety of fresh produce when it is so obvious that such a program is needed.  The GAO also scolds the FDA for not keeping up with monitoring of food labels.  The FDA has too much to do and not enough resources.  But, says GAO, the FDA would do better if it took this watchdog agency’s advice–but it doesn’t.  Why not?  The GAO doesn’t say so, but it’s politics, of course.  The food industry is ever vigilant against regulation.   This stance goes against the food industry’s best interest, in my view.  Yours?

The FDA says melamine in food at or below a level of 2.5 ppm (mg/kg) is unlikely to be harmful–except in infant formula.  This seems reasonable; on a per kg body weight basis, this would be a very low dose.  But what about when it is mixed with its by-product, cyanuric acid?  Nobody has yet defined the lowest dose of melamine which, when mixed with cyanuric acid, does not form kidney-blocking crystals.  Melamine should not be in the food supply at all, and especially not in infant formula, under any circumstances

The FDA says meat from cloned animals is safe and has produced a bunch of web documents to reassure you that you can eat these things.  Will the meat be labeled as cloned?  Of course not.  The FDA guidelines will be up for comment for the next 60 days so if you have an opinion on this development, now is your chance.  I particularly recommend the Q’s and A’s on the FDA site.  Here’s one example:  “Q: Will food from GE animals be in the food supply? A: FDA has so far not approved or authorized any GE animals for use in food. However, we are reviewing applications…We can not predict when we will complete those reviews, but we will not approve any GE animal for food use unless we find that the food from those GE animals is safe.”

This is interesting.  The USDA has done an analysis of the kinds of imported foods rejected by the FDA for reasons of sanitation (the lack thereof), pesticides, and improper or no registration.   The winners are vegetables, seafood, and fruit, in that order.  This report was about the industries that are having the most problems.  It doesn’t say a word about the countries doing the exporting.  Maybe the USDA will do that next?  That’s the one I want to see.

The FDA has just sent me its latest Constituent Update. This one announces that the FDA has approved a petition from the Grocery Manufacturers Association on behalf of the Food Irradiation Coalition (guess what that is) to allow irradiation of fresh iceberg lettuce and spinach. Never mind insisting that producers and packers produce safe produce, let’s just zap it! The FDA is collecting comments on this dubious initiative, and it must know what to expect: “Electronic objections may be submitted to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov.”

If you do weigh in, be sure to refer to Docket No. FDA-1999-F-2405 (formerly 1999F-5522). The request for comment isn’t posted yet, but presumably will be soon at the Constituent Update site.

And here’s what the European food industry community has to say about this.

Try to get your mind around this one. To make high fructose corn syrup, it is necessary to (1) extract the starch from corn, (2) treat the starch with an enzyme to break it into glucose, and (3) treat the glucose with another enzyme to turn about half of it into fructose. OK class, explain how this can be considered natural? Answer: because the enzymes are fixed to a column and do not actually mix with the starch. Oh. So the FDA considers HFCS natural because Archer Daniels Midland and the Corn Refiners Association asked it to. Regime change, anyone?