Published: December 18, 2008
U.S. Regulators Want Safety Built Into Every Step of The Food-Supply Chain
By Kathryn McConnell 
United States Opens Food-Safety Offices in China
Washington - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has opened offices in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in hopes of better regulating the safety of imported food and medicine.
In 2009, the agency plans to open offices in India, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
The expansion is part of a food-protection plan launched in late 2007 for domestically produced and imported products.
The agency said it wants to build safety into every step of the food-supply chain.
The U.S. offices in China are a milestone in the globalization of food safety, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt said in an October press release. FDA is an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services.
"We won't have to send our experts to another country to work with other governments and regulated industry to improve our oversight - we'll have staff living there."
Science and 21st-century technologies are helping FDA transform its approach to food safety, FDA head Andrew von Eschenbach said in a December 1 press release.
"Each day, the FDA is working with foreign countries, state and local governments, regulated industry and consumer groups to ensure the safety of the food supply," he said.
In mid-November, Leavitt and von Eschenbach met with Chinese officials to discuss policy and governance reforms aimed at improving the safety of food. Discussion included such issues as a recent outbreak of food-borne illness in the United States related to fresh produce and contamination of dairy products in China with the industrial chemical melamine.
As part of its ongoing strategy to address melamine contamination of consumer products exported from China, FDA has expanded its import controls on Chinese dairy products and issued a nationwide import alert in the United States.
The agency has approved the use of irradiation of iceberg lettuce and spinach to control pathogens and developed methods to detect melamine and cyanuric acid in animal feed and feed ingredients. FDA also reports that it now uses genetic analysis to identify salmonella in seafood imports.
FDA personnel in overseas offices will provide technical advice, conduct added inspections and work with government agencies and private-sector groups interested in developing export-certification programs, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
FDA also plans additional hiring. It is working to develop better methods to identify food-safety threats at borders, enhance product-tracing capabilities and improve reporting of food-safety threats.
But the Congress' investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, is calling for more action. In September, it called for greater oversight of fresh produce.
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)
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