[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 39 (Monday, March 1, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 9232-9233]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-4110]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

[Docket No. FDA-2010-N-0104]


Measuring Progress on Food Safety: Current Status and Future 
Directions; Public Workshop

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Notice of public workshop.

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    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing a public 
workshop entitled Measuring Progress on Food Safety: Current Status and 
Future Directions. The purpose of the public workshop is to inform the 
public about current and potential measurements for assessing progress 
in food safety and associated methodological issues and to discuss 
potential improvements.
    Date and Time: The public workshop will be held on March 30, 2010, 
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
    Location: The public workshop will be held in the Regency A 
Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Washington, 400 New Jersey Ave., NW., 
Washington, DC 20001, 202-737-1234, FAX: 202-737-5773.
    Contact Person: For registration information and general questions 
regarding the workshop, contact Juanita Yates, Center for Food Safety 
and Applied Nutrition (HFS-009), Food and Drug Administration, 5100 
Paint Branch Pkwy., College Park, MD 20740, 301-436-1731, e-mail: 
[email protected].
    Registration: There is no registration fee. However, due to limited 
seating, we encourage all persons who wish to attend the workshop to 
register in advance. Attendees may register in advance by March 24, 
2010. There will be no onsite registration. We encourage attendees to 
register for the workshop electronically at: http://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/WorkshopsMeetingsConferences/ucm201102.htm.
    If you need special accommodations due to disability, please 
contact Juanita Yates (see Contact Person) by March 24, 2010.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Federal Government and the food industry 
are pursuing major new efforts to reduce foodborne illness that include 
science-based preventive controls in food production and processing. As 
recommended by the President's Food Safety Working Group (Ref. 1), one 
element of the Federal Government's food safety initiatives includes 
regularly assessing performance metrics for measuring progress in 
reducing foodborne illness. FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food 
Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) are collaborating to address the 
methodologic and data challenges involved in the development of 
feasible and effective food safety metrics. The agencies will engage 
the food safety expert and stakeholder communities to discuss this 
subject through a series of public workshops.

I. Background

    FDA and FSIS base decisions about policies and other interventions 
related to food safety, in part, on CDC's analyses of data on foodborne 
illness. These analyses are powerful tools for assessing the safety of 
food, which, in turn, reflects the effectiveness of Government and 
industry policies and interventions. The President's Food Safety 
Working Group has noted the importance of assessing metrics (Ref. 1). 
Through its epidemiologic and laboratory data collection and analysis, 
CDC generates various types of measures and estimates of foodborne 
illness, via a number of mechanisms, which serve different purposes. 
For example, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network 
(FoodNet) collects data on laboratory-confirmed cases of nine foodborne 
illnesses caused by bacteria and parasites commonly associated with 
foodborne human illness (e.g., Salmonella and Escherichia coli 
O157:H7). The cases are reported to CDC by State health authorities in 
10 States representing 15 percent of the U.S. population (i.e., all of 
Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and 
Tennessee and selected counties in California, Colorado, and New York). 
Based on the FoodNet data, CDC writes an annual report on the incidence 
and trends of laboratory-confirmed cases of these nine illnesses. The 
FoodNet also conducts special studies to determine risk factors for 
acquiring those illnesses.

[[Page 9233]]

    Periodically, CDC estimates the overall burden of foodborne 
illness. CDC's estimate of the overall burden of foodborne illness has 
a much larger scope than CDC's annual reports and draws heavily from 
FoodNet data as well as from a much wider variety of data sources, both 
inside and outside of CDC. This estimate also includes norovirus, a 
major contributor to the overall burden of foodborne disease, which can 
be transmitted not only by foods, but also by environmental sources, 
and is not monitored by FoodNet. CDC's last estimate of the overall 
burden of foodborne illness was issued in 1999 and included unknown 
causes of foodborne illness (Ref. 2). Since then, advances in 
methodology and data sources have improved capabilities in developing 
disease burden estimates; these will be reflected in CDC's next 
estimate.
    In addition to CDC estimates, FDA and USDA use other measures to 
gauge the success, or implied success (i.e., via proxy measures), of 
policies and interventions for reducing foodborne illness. For example, 
although measurements of the food industry's compliance with a given 
food safety regulation cannot be used to directly measure the 
regulation's impact on the rate of foodborne illness, improved 
compliance can be reasonably expected to improve the likelihood that 
the foods involved will be safer and, thus, the likelihood that fewer 
illnesses will result. Examples include the tracking of E. coli O157:H7 
in ground beef and of Salmonella in meat, and surveys of both domestic 
and imported produce, such as surveys conducted by FDA and USDA's 
Microbiological Data Program, which have targeted Salmonella and E. 
coli O157:H7.

II. Purpose of the Workshop and Topics for Discussion

    The purpose of this initial 1-day public workshop is to discuss 
current and potential measurements for assessing progress in food 
safety and to provide workshop participants an opportunity to learn 
about metrics and to consider and suggest metrics for assessing the 
effects that policies and interventions have on foodborne illness. The 
workshop will focus on the current status and challenges involved in 
measuring foodborne illness and trends over time, including incidence 
and trends in the overall burden of foodborne illness and illnesses 
associated with specific foodborne pathogens and specific pathogens 
that affect specific foods. The workshop will include a discussion of 
other measures that are, or could be, used to measure food safety 
progress that cannot be directly linked to health outcomes. These 
include measures of process control in food production, studies on the 
prevalence of specific pathogens in specific classes of food, and 
studies of compliance with recommended or required food safety 
practices in retail and food-service operations.
    Specifically, topics to be discussed include CDC's data sources and 
methods, including methods for estimating the burden of foodborne 
illness, and their various limitations and utilities; and FDA's and 
USDA's ongoing measures to gauge the success, or implied success (i.e., 
via the kinds of proxy measures described in previously mentioned 
examples; e.g., surveys for E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella in produce 
and tracking of specific pathogens in meat), of policies and 
interventions, including the level of compliance with food safety 
regulations.

III. Transcripts

    Please be advised that as soon as a transcript is available, it 
will be accessible at http://www.regulations.gov. It may be viewed at 
the Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug 
Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852. A 
transcript will also be available in either hardcopy or on CD-ROM, 
after submission of a Freedom of Information request. Written requests 
are to be sent to Division of Freedom of Information (HFI-35), Office 
of Management Programs, Food and Drug Administration, 5600 Fishers 
Lane, rm. 6-30, Rockville, MD 20857.

IV. References

    The following references are on display at the Division of Dockets 
Management (see Transcripts), between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through 
Friday. (FDA has verified the following Web site address, but FDA is 
not responsible for any subsequent changes to the Web site after this 
document publishes in the Federal Register.)
    1. President's Food Safety Working Group findings, http://www.foodsafetyworkinggroup.gov/ContentKeyFindings/HomeKeyFindings.htm.
    2. Mead P.S., L. Slutsker, V. Dietz, et al., Food-Related 
Illness and Death in the United States, Emerging Infectious 
Diseases, 5(5), 607-625, 1999.

    Dated: February 23, 2010.
Leslie Kux,
Acting Assistant Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2010-4110 Filed 2-26-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-01-S