Food and Drug Administration plans restructuring
April 17, 2007
17 April 2007
Food and Drug Administration plans restructuring
This article is excerpted from the 17 April 2007 edition of “The Journal of Commerce”, and provides coverage of sessions of the NCBFAA’s annual conference being held this week.
The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to restructure its operations in order to provide importers with greater uniformity in product classification.
Customs brokers meeting here … applauded the agency’s efforts and encouraged the government agency to seek input from the trade community as it attempts to strike a balance between enforcement and trade facilitation.
The FDA is responsible for protecting Americans from the importation of food products and medicines that could present health risks. Also, since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the FDA has worked to prevent bioterrorism, or the corruption of the food chain to cause widespread harm.
Unlike Customs and Border Protection, which has worked closely with the trade community for a number of years and is considered to have struck a reasonable balance between enforcement and trade facilitation, the FDA is still feeling its way in this area….
However, the FDA also believes it can improve its level of service to the trade and intends to do so as it restructures the agency over the next six months. A major goal of the program is to have the Agency’s 16 different import districts report to a compliance team at FDA headquarters in order to provide greater uniformity throughout the agency.
Brokers corroborated the need for greater uniformity. It is not unusual for different FDA import districts to provide conflicting product code information for the same merchandise, they said.
Customs brokers said the FDA could also do a better job in responding in a timely manner to inquiries from the trade community and they are willing to ask Congress to appropriate more money to FDA if that is what’s needed. …
Brokers expressed concern that as the FDA restructures, some product experts could experience diminished influence within the agency. For example, one FDA district may have developed an expertise in seafood while another district is especially knowledgeable in ethnic foods….