Posted July 2, 2014
The
American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) submitted
comments to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) applauding their
proposal to exempt animal food from the Food Safety Modernization Act’s (FSMA)
intentional adulteration rule, according to an AFIA press release available here.
Dairy Herd Management also published the release available here.
A previous blog post on FSMA is available here.
The
"Focused Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional
Adulteration" would require registered domestic and foreign food
facilities to address hazards that may be intentionally introduced by acts of
terrorism.
AFIA
stated that the major differences between risks in human food and animal food,
especially when dealing with intentional adulteration, which is recognized by
Congress in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
"What is nutritious for a ruminant cow may not be
nutritious for a pig. Sheep, for example, have an increased sensitivity to
copper. Risk varies between humans and animals as well. For example, humans can
be allergic to a host of things from peanuts to shellfish, while animals simply
do not have this same risk," the organization stated.
The creation of Section 420 in the FD&C Act states FSMA “requires
FDA to establish regulations for facilities to review the potential risk of
intentional adulteration of food.”
"AFIA fully supports FDA's findings and proposed
exemption of animal food in the intentional adulteration rule as we believe it
is Congress' intent," said Richard Sellers, AFIA senior vice president of
legislative and regulatory affairs. "FDA has indicated the proposed rule's
purpose is 'to protect food from intentional adulteration when the intent is to
cause large-scale public harm' and AFIA firmly believes animal food has a
significantly lower risk of impacting human health."
A final rule on intentional adulteration will be issued on
May 31, 2016.
For more information on food safety, please visit the
National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
