FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), released its Fiscal Year 2006 Program Priorities earlier this month. The document lays out the expectations of the focus for the current fiscal year 2006 (Oct. 1, 2005, through Sept. 30, 2006). According to a letter from Robert E. Brackett, Ph.D., director of CFSAN, the priorities focus on the question: "Where do we do the most good for consumers and the overall public health?"
The topics to be addressed are grouped into five primary sections that represent the Center's goals, taking into account high-priority areas that concentrate on safety of regulated products as well as budgetary constraints:
• Ensuring food defense;
• Ensuring food safety;
• Improving nutrition;
• Ensuring dietary supplement and cosmetic safety and management services; and
• Priority ongoing activities.
Research earmarked as critically important activities includes food defense issues, such as developing DNA microarray, genome optical mapping, and bioinformatics analysis to identify E. coli O157:H7, plus food safety initiatives, including a risk assessment for the potential health risks of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and studies on viral and bacterial pathogens in certain seafood. Also on the agenda are activities concerning food allergens that encompass carmine and cochineal colorants, gluten, and soy-lecithin release agents.
"FDA is a science-led organization and the research CFSAN conducts provides the cornerstone of good regulatory decisions and enforcement activities," writes Brackett. "Science and sound regulation are inseparable at FDA and research is the foundation for daily decisions on a wide range of CFSAN-regulated products that affect public health. I believe that it is important to highlight the importance of this core activity."
The full list can be found at: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/%7Edms/cfsan506.html.
