FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods, Mike Taylor, Delivers Major Policy Speech at GW
Newswise — WASHINGTON (May 19, 2011) — Today, at an event hosted by the GW School of Public Health and Health Services, the Food and Drug Administration’s Deputy Commissioner for Foods, Mike Taylor, delivered a speech that focused on prevention as a core principle of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. Taylor’s remarks engaged both food industry stakeholders and the public health community. He delivered the message that not only is the federal government committed to the issue of food safety and prevention, but also that prevention of food safety problems is in everyone’s interest in order to create a healthy and sustainable food system working at local and global levels, to feed our population.
Taylor explained that the new food safety law shifts the FDA’s focus from reaction and response to prevention by systematically building in safety measures across the food system, from farm to the table. The new law creates a framework for strengthening FDA’s inspection, compliance and outbreak response tools; modernizing oversight of food imports; and calling for enhanced partnership as part of a more integrated food safety system.
“The FDA enthusiastically welcomes this challenge, but also knows that the new system will not come easily. We will make the investments in science to better understand hazards and effective interventions; into training of FDA staff; into developing information sharing systems; into state and local food safety capacity; and into the implementation of a dramatically new paradigm for import oversight,” Taylor said. “We know that these investments in prevention will not only produce a food safety system that is more effective and efficient for both government and industry, but will produce a system that consumers can trust is doing everything reasonably possible to make food safe,” he said.
A panel of experts, including Caroline Smith DeWaal, Director of Food Safety, Center for Science in the Public Interest; and Leon Bruner, Senior Vice President for Scientific and Regulatory Affairs and CSO, Grocery Manufacturers Association, provided comments and reaction following Deputy Commissioner Taylor’s speech. The panel, moderated by Dr. Lynn Goldman, Dean of the GW School of Public Health and Health Services, discussed the challenges faced by both consumer and industry organizations.
As host to this event, the GW School of Public Health and Health Services had a large contingent of both public health researchers and students in attendance.
“Keeping people safe from foodborne illnesses is a major undertaking because they affect 48 million people each year. Prevention of foodborne illness is the responsibility not only of government agencies, but also of the food industry and consumers. We are delighted to play a role by convening discussions like the one we had today, to identify workable approaches. We also engage in scientific research and we train public health experts in the food safety area,” said Dr. Goldman.
About the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services:Established in July 1997, the School of Public Health and Health Services brought together three longstanding university programs in the schools of medicine, business, and education that we have since expanded substantially. Today, more than 900 students from nearly every U.S. state and more than 35 nations pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral-level degrees in public health. Our student body is one of the most ethnically diverse among the nation's private schools of public health. http://sphhs.gwumc.edu/
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