A unified food safety agency is needed to ensure that foods are safe for the consuming public. The current collection of federal agencies responsible for ensuring the safety of foods emerged out of the requirements of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Although that long period of growth has produced a large, multiagency regulatory system, it has been a somewhat haphazard growth, marked by much disagreement about how best to achieve success.
Near the center of today’s debates sits the issue of why four different agencies—two at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), one at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and one at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—are necessary to carry out the mission of keeping our food safe.
History of the Current System
A close look at the history of the current system is necessary for a fair appraisal of its performance. For present purposes, however, it’s clear that many expert observers have for years called for the merger of the food safety programs of these agencies into a single agency. The most recent set of such proposals began with a report from the Government Accountability Office in 1994, and similar proposals continue to appear.
These proposals are largely based on the view that situating institutions with closely similar missions into a single organization is necessary to avoid introducing a host of impediments to success, such as conflicting approaches to similar problems and differences in priorities. One important and serious downside of the system we currently have concerns the difficulties encountered in attempting to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the entire system when it is so fragmented.
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The Case for a Single Agency
Merging Food Safety Programs
The case for merging the several U.S. food safety programs into a single agency would be strengthened if there were evidence that the fragmentation that now exists had somehow created significant inefficiencies or had led to avoidable public health problems. A new agency, which we can refer to as FOODS, would be positioned to adopt the most advanced risk assessment and management programs, necessary to develop an understanding of the safety of regulated substances.
Risk assessments would be conducted by scientists at FOODS to determine the probability that a regulated substance will pose a risk to health. A substance would be considered safe if the health risk it poses is so small as to be judged an insignificant threat to health. If safety criteria are not met, the substance would be either prohibited or subject to a risk management program that achieves safety by limiting human exposures.
At present, regulatory agencies use two different methods to assess the health risks of chemicals that can cause some form of toxicity. For chemicals that have been shown to induce cancer, it is assumed that there is a risk of cancer at any exposure. Risks decline as exposures decline, and at some exposure point, risks become so small as to approach zero.
A recent report from the Environmental Defense Fund lists 25 chemicals that have carcinogenic properties as being present in foods. The sources of these chemicals, their exposure and risk levels, and the reasons they have not been eliminated or otherwise controlled appear to be unanswered questions.
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Implementing a New Agency
Given the complexities of the current system, a new FOODS agency would need to address the intricacies of congressional authorizing, appropriating, and oversight authorities. The FDA and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, for example, have distinct histories and cultures that would need to be taken into account during the reorganization process.
The creation of a new FOODS agency would require significant changes to the existing regulatory framework. This would involve consolidating the food safety programs of the FDA, USDA, and EPA into a single agency, and establishing a new set of rules and procedures for ensuring the safety of foods. The agency would need to be staffed by scientists and experts with the necessary training and expertise to conduct risk assessments and develop effective risk management programs.
Prioritizing Proactive Safety
Ultimately, the success of a new FOODS agency would depend on its ability to adopt a proactive and preventive approach to food safety, rather than simply reacting to problems as they arise. By prioritizing risk assessment and management, and providing greater transparency and accountability to the public, FOODS could help to ensure that the US food supply is safe and healthy for consumers. The agency’s efforts would be focused on preventing foodborne illnesses and protecting public health, rather than simply responding to outbreaks and crises.
The arguments for creating a single agency for food safety that have been put forward by several credible individuals and organizations are compelling enough to place this goal at the top of a post-2028 regulatory agenda. The difficulties that will have to be overcome to realize this goal are fairly serious, but achieving it and ensuring a management program dedicated to its singular mission will create an effective and efficient food safety system.
