The Senate has passed S-510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, to give the FDA greater inspection authority and capacity. The bill’s sponsor, Richard Durbin, D-Ill., says it would provide the agency “with more resources for inspection, mandatory recall authority, and the technology to trace an outbreak back to its source.”
It would increase the number of FDA inspections at all food facilities, expand FDA access to a registered facility’s records in a food emergency, and give the agency mandatory recall authority when a company fails to voluntarily recall the contaminated product upon FDA’s request.
It would also develop a food-borne illness surveillance system to improve the collection, analysis, reporting, and usefulness of data on food-borne illnesses, as well as authorize increased funding for FDA’s food safety activities, such as hiring personnel, and includes targeted non-compliance fees for domestic and foreign facilities.
