Broken Traceback System Threatens Food Safety
A system established by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to trace the movement of food through the supply chain is so flawed that a government watchdog group was only able to trace five of 40 products in an audit.
The findings in a report by the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general's office show yet another hole in the food safety net that is supposed to protect Americans from outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria and other human pathogens -- not to mention agents of bioterrorism.
in 2005, FDA required certain food facilities to maintain records identifying the sources, recipients, and transporters of food products. The purpose of these records is to allow FDA to trace an article of food through each stage of the food supply chain—from a retail shelf back to a farm and vice versa— if FDA has a reasonable belief that a food product is adulterated and presents a serious health threat.
"We were able to trace 5 of the 40 products through each stage of the food supply chain; for most of the other products, we could identify the facilities that likely handled them,'' the report says.
The inspector general review found that even the simplest requirements are not being met.The report says that 59 percent (70 of 118) of the food facilities audited did not meet FDA's requirements to maintain contact information about their sources, recipients, and transporters. Auditors found that some managers in the supply chain were relying on paper records -- too voluminous to do much good -- while others had non-integrated computer data that required searches of various databases to align products with information about where they came from and where they were forwarded.
