12 October 2007

 

 

 

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations grilled witnesses for four hours Thursday to clarify what Congress should give the Food and Drug Administration to tighten its control of imported food and other products.

 

The committee is considering a bill, the Food and Drug Import Safety Act of 2007, sponsored by its chairman, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. The FDA has been under pressure from Congress since the summer, after a string of incidents where tainted food products and unsafe toys evaded the agency’s scrutiny. Critics on and off Capitol Hill said the cases demonstrated how poorly FDA was able to monitor goods in international commerce. Witnesses Thursday pointed out that FDA inspects only 1 percent of the imports under its jurisdiction.

 

Dingell’s bill calls on FDA to improve its testing of foreign food products; requires certification of foreign facilities that export food; limits food imports to ports with an FDA testing laboratory; country-of-origin labeling on food imports, and allows the agency to collect fees on imported goods under its jurisdiction….

 

Committee members and witnesses discussed food imports from China. Witnesses said that the Chinese government is trying to impose high standards on exports. Hong Kong and Japan have established stringent import certification programs for Chinese food imports, but witnesses said it would be costly to emulate their system….