October 16, 2015 – FDA Food Regs

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Anchor lead:  The FDA has released new food safety regulations, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Perhaps you’ve been avoiding cantaloupe, or sprouts, or chicken, based on reports in the media of food-borne illness related to these foods.  Good news then that the FDA, for the first time in seven years, has updated regulations relative to food safety.  Mike Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, applauds the action.

Klag: The estimates of people who have food borne illness in high income countries like ours is very high, but then when you look obviously around the world it’s even higher.  So I was very happy to see the FDA updated their food regulations.  We’ve had a number of outbreaks in recent years that we all know about.  Food borne illness is a large source of morbidity in the US and causes a number of deaths, so this clearly has to be on the FDA’s radar screen.  I’m glad they’re looking at that.  Now I hope that we’ll do surveillance to see how effective these regulations are.   :29

Insuring food safety requires a multipronged approach, Klag says, involving best practices for growing, storing and transporting food as well as regular inspections, so the FDA has a tough job, especially as an ever growing number of food items are imported.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.