The Trump administration has proposed a fundamental change to the mission of the Food and Drug Administration, one that would transfer most of the responsibility for regulating food safety to the Department of Agriculture and rename the FDA the “Federal Drug Administration.”
The proposal is part of a wide-reaching plan that was released Thursday [June 21] by the White House and that includes other broader ideas to reform the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS would be renamed the “Department of Health and Public Welfare” and absorb some food assistance programs currently run by the USDA.
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Currently, both the FDA and the USDA regulate different parts of the food supply. For example, the FDA regulates whole eggs while the USDA regulates liquid eggs. The FDA regulates fish — except catfish, which fall under the jurisdiction of the USDA.
“This division of responsibility started in response to unsafe and unsanitary meat packing conditions in the early 1900s, but today it introduces greater risk, inefficiency, and inconsistency into the important work of ensuring food safety, which affects everyone in America,” the administration’s proposal said. Consolidating these parts of the different agencies into a single “Federal Food Safety Agency,” it added, “would provide better food safety for the country and improve efficiency for stakeholders.”
Read full, original article: White House proposes a narrowing of FDA’s mission — and a new name
