FDA Overhauling Approval Process

The Food and Drug Administration is overhauling how it determines what chemicals are safe to add to food, after complaints that it spends years approving such additives as fat substitutes.

But lawmakers said the program, unveiled Thursday, does not go far enough, and one even suggested taking food responsibility away from the FDA.

“We should consider putting this whole function in another agency--Agriculture--if it can’t be fixed in the FDA,” Rep. David McIntosh (R-Ind.) said.

At issue is how quickly the FDA determines whether chemicals, from artificial sweeteners to those that rub into foods through their packaging, are safe to eat.

Although required by law to clear food additives six months after companies apply for them, the agency can take years. Some of the 295 petitions pending at the FDA today date to the 1970s. The oldest, sodium nitrite in whitefish, has sat for 24 years while scientists wrangle over whether it could cause cancer.

“The U.S. food industry is entitled to timely and predictable decisions,” FDA Deputy Commissioner Linda Suydam said. “FDA can improve the process. . . . We need to get rid of the backlog so we can start fresh.”

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