Food Safety Research Paper

Food safety incorporates the quest for clean, unadulterated, wholesome food that can qualify to be fit for consumption. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a body charged with ensuring that all food products, locally manufactured or imported, are free from the risks of contamination. FDA is also responsible for endorsing medical equipment, to ensure that they are secure and effective. The FDA has the authority over all foodstuffs that go through the state lines, with an exemption of meat and poultry products. Despite the existence of the FDA, people are still getting sick or losing their lives due to food related infections. These cases indicate that the FDA structure is in dire need of change. The initial design cannot detect serious unpleasant events. Failure of reporting adverse events reduces the aptitude to enumerate the risks accurately. There is a need to control serious problems that can jeopardize food and drug industry. The FDA should be given the necessary resources to ensure that food manufactures are following good safety procedures.

The first reason why the FDA should have enough resources to carry out its mandate is due to regulations and processes involved in the registration. For the FDA to work effectively, it requires to work closely with the food manufacturing industries, consumers, states, regional governments and international trading partners. The FDA coerces all companies that deal in food products to register with them. This is in line with the Bioterrorism Act. According to Expeditors (2003), the Bioterrorism Act grants the FDA authority to identify the sources of deliberate or accidental food contamination. The Act compels the FDA to collect information concerning food facilities before they are released for consumption by human beings and animals. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) advises the FDA to compel all facilities that engage in food manufacturing to employ preventive food safety systems (Fortin, 2011, p. 261). The Act shifted the FDA’s mandate from responding to adverse effects in preventing adverse effects. By registering the food facilities, the FDA is able to make decisions based on any anticipated risk. The process of registration may take a lot of time, thus allowing frauds and mistakes. Funding the FDA will enable it to improve on the registration of all information to prevent any risk that imported foods may have to human beings and animals. This can be rectified by employing more workers, who are qualified to handle such responsibilities.

The FDA has undertaken several research studies to guarantee food safety in the market. Reliance on research studies helps the agency to make necessary changes that can enhance food safety in the food facilities. To overcome the challenges experienced in the process of registration, the FDA needs to develop new precautionary measures, as well as to guide on food production. The agency needs to train the foreign food producers, who may be vulnerable to risks that involve food importation. Training and guiding the foreign food producers can consume a considerable time if there is no enough expertise to undertake that duty. The agency may also need to establish a user-free program that guides the importers on facility certification. The process of developing preventive control measures for all food products and the geographical area that is involved requires the FDA to have the essential resources to oversee these processes. A rigorous process is essential to ensure that companies do not sell harmful products to customers.

However, the procedure of registration is very expensive and consumes a lot of time. According to some agency officials, the FDA does not have sufficient resources to carry out a national registration program. Despite lack of resources, it is still not clear whether the required resources to run the program would help the FDA to exceed its mandate of identifying all the food manufacturers who are under its jurisdiction. The inspection of food manufacturing facilities is more or less the same. Sometimes what gets through in the manufacturing industry after inspection is just for bookkeeping. Auditors may chose to award safety ratings to food products without going through the right process of testing the products for any adverse effect. FDA’s jurisdiction to restrict contaminated products from getting into the market is not consistent. The agency can only do so through a court order. The process of getting a court order and issuing it to the companies violating the rules can create a loophole to allow contaminated foods to get into the market. The critics of the agency argued that the FDA takes a lot of time to implement a law, thus putting many lives at risk from catching foodborne diseases.