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FDA-Sponsored 50-State Meeting Held in Denver
Posted: Friday, August 20, 2010
The “50-state” workshop meeting sponsored by FDA was held August 17-19, 2010, at The Curtis, A Doubletree Hotel, in Denver, Colorado. Over 270 food protection officials from federal, state, local, and tribal governments participated.
The federal government is committed to optimizing coordination of food safety efforts with state, local, tribal, and territorial regulatory and public health agencies to protect our food supply. This workshop was another major step in a long-term process of collaboration to achieve uniformity and consistency in food and feed safety across the nation. FDA believes the success of developing an integrated food safety system depends on the input and assistance from all government regulatory and public health partners.
The workshop highlighted the progress of the Partnership for Food Protection Workgroups, provided an update on current legislative issues, and offered an opportunity for discussion and input on building an integrated food safety system. The majority of participants’ time was spent in small group sessions where they engaged in strategic-level discussions to shape the future direction of an integrated food safety system and enable all regulatory and public health partners to work more effectively in an integrated fashion to promote the safety of the United States food supply.
A more complete report of the meeting will be prepared by FDA shortly.
Provided by Joe Corby, AFDO’s Executive Director
Directory of State & Local Officials (DSLO) Update
Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010
In September 2008, AFDO was awarded a 3-Year Cooperative Agreement with FDA to update the Directory of State & Local Officials (DSLO), to update AFDO’s State Food Safety Resource Survey and to conduct a Recall Survey of state programs.
The Resource Survey has been completed, distributed extensively and is available on the AFDO Website. It demonstrates the enormity of resources, the extent of effort and the presence of innovation that exists at the state and local levels. It is our hope that it provides critical support for advancing efforts to integrate the nation’s food safety system. A supplement to this project was a special Recall Survey that identified state experiences with recall investigations in an effort to improve processes. A summary of these results will be compiled and available on the AFDO Website in the near future.
The DSLO is currently under development. A preliminary rendition exists currently on the AFDO Website, giving users the fundamental ability to identify state contacts through an interactive map. Efforts are presently underway to develop an easy-to-use online search tool which will allow public users to search for state and local contacts through standardized search criteria such as state, FDA Region, jurisdiction, program area, etc. Agency information will be updated on a quarterly basis by the AFDO Office.
AFDO representatives have recently met with FDA to review progress on this project and its development schedule. Additionally, a special project review meeting is planned during the September AFDOSS meeting in Gatlinburg, TN to review the efforts of this agreement and to identify improvements that can be made to future efforts.
Any questions regarding this project should be sent to Joe Corby, Executive Director or Leigh Ann Stambaugh, Senior Administrative Specialist & Grants/IT Coordinator.
9th Annual FDA-York College Food Safety Workshop
Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010
The 9th Annual FDA-York College Food Safety Workshop: "Rapid Methods to Detect Priority Pathogens in Food and on Environmental Surfaces" will be held from Tuesday, November 2 to Thursday, November 4, 2010 at the FDA Northeast Regional Laboratory and York College in Queens, NY. [More Information]