Safe Food Coalition Urges Congress, Regulators to Follow Through on Rule to Improve Foodborne Illness Outbreak Investigations
Washington, D.C. - Members of the Safe Food Coalition submitted the following letters to congressional leaders and FDA expressing opposition to legislation that would scuttle FDA’s final rule on Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods, aka “the FDA Food Traceability Rule.” As the letter points out, the rule represents an already long overdue implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which Congress passed with broad bipartisan support in 2010, nearly a decade and a half ago. Some large retailers have already begun taking steps to comply with FDA’s rule, but the proposed legislation would send FDA back to the drawing board, requiring the agency to devise a new scheme that does not rely on retailers maintaining lot codes, one of the central data elements of the current rule.
