GAO Slams FDA

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report that harshly criticizes the FDA for failing to put the Food Protection Plan it released last November into operation. GAO noted that FDA had promised back in March that it would release a progress report the following month, then amended that in May to say that it had prepared a draft progress report, but as of June no report has been issued.

The food protection plan the agency had proposed calls for going to a risk-based inspection system of food production facilities as a cost-effective solution to handling its growing workload. The number of domestic and foreign plants producing for the U.S. market, which FDA has responsibility for monitoring, has grown significantly in recent years.

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