| Date: | Thursday October 09, @05:07PM |
|---|---|
| Author: | ewing2001 |
| Topic: | Bush |
| from the AP dept. | |
WASHINGTON - Virtually every food product in the United States will soon have to be registered along with its supplier as part of the fight against terrorism.
Figuring that the best way to protect the nation's food supply is to keep better tabs on it, the government is requiring some 400,000 facilities in the United States to register themselves and their products with the Food and Drug Administration.
In addition, anyone importing food from abroad will have to give regulators advance notice before its arrival: two hours for food shipments coming across the border by truck, four hours if aboard planes or trains, and eight hours if by ship.
"We are providing critical new tools for the FDA to identify potentially dangerous foods and better keep our food supply safe and secure," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Thursday in announcing the regulations that take effect Dec. 12.
FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan said the government will continue to work with food companies to assure that the requirements do not interrupt trade.
The Bush administration in May proposed making food companies notify regulators of shipments from outside the United States by noon on the day before its arrival. The industry complained that requirement for shipments as simple as daily truckloads of fresh vegetables from Canada and Mexico would interrupt trade.
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printed from Monitoring Food on 2004-06-03 16:32:29