Report Says FDA’s Food Facility Registry is Inept
Recent outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella involving peanut butter, peppers, and spinach have raised serious questions about FDA’s ability to protect our nation’s food supply. Those aren’t my words, they are the words of federal investigators who have studied the problem.
Too often it has been the case that outbreaks have festered with the agency unable to accurately and quickly trace matching illnesses to a common source of contaminated food. The 2008-2009 Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak caused by Peanut Corporation of America is the latest example. Nine people died in the outbreak, including three whose families are represented by our national food safety law firm, Pritzker Olsen Attorneys.
Now the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a report that attributes part of the problem to a failure of FDA’s 4-year-old Food Facility Registry. The system is supposed to help FDA investigators quickly locate domestic food facilities for inspection during an outbreak.
But OIG inspectors found that almost half of the 130 food facilities they questioned failed to provide accurate information for the registry.
The inspectors also found that 7 percent of selected facilities either failed to register or failed to cancel their registration, as required. Their report said FDA’s regulations do not ensure that the registry contains certain information that may be needed to locate a facility in an emergency.
Specifically, 30 facilities did not provide accurate contact information for the facilities, 26 facilities did not provide an accurate emergency contact phone number, 20 facilities did not provide accurate contact information for the owner or operator, and 14 facilities did not provide accurate contact information for their parent company.
The report said the FDA generally agrees with OIG recommendations to seek additional authority under the law to compel registrations and issue daily fines to violators. The registry should also start to include an up-to-date listing of who to contact in an emergency, the report said.
The inspector general’s latest report on FDA’s Food Facility Registry is part of an overall body of work on food safety that will include additional investigations. Nine moths ago, the OIG issued a report about its attempt to trace the path of 40 food products through the supply chain. Traceback investigations are crucial to effectively pinpoint which food is making people sick in an outbreak of E. coli, Salmonella or other human pathogen.
The OIG report said that only 5 of the 40 food products it purchased could be traced through each stage of the food supply chain. That report on the traceability of contaminated food also found that 59 percent of selected food facilities did not comply with FDA’s record-keeping requirement.
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