With such a high rate of inaccuracy, the FDA said it would contact owners, operators, and agents in charge of domestic and foreign registered facilities to improve the accuracy of the information in the Food Facility Registration Database.
The database was created so the FDA could alert and contact managers in the case of an emergency.The survey was conducted by the FDA in a bid to assess the accuracy of the registration database.Under the law food companies are required to register and supply the contact information under thecountry's bioterrorism laws. Foreign food companies are required to appoint a US agent..
About 420,000 food facilities are required to register under the act, of which half are domesticcompanies. The US agent acts as a communications link between FDA and the foreign facility based inthe US. The FDA considers providing information to the US agent the same as providing informationdirectly to the foreign facility.
The FDA surveyed 400 companies in the submitted database. The survey found that the contactinformation and the identity of the emergency contact is inaccurate for between 20.6 per cent to30.5 per cent of all registered domestic facilities in the database. The regulator also found thesame problem in the information supplied by between 21.8 per cent to 31.8 per cent of all registered foreign facilities.
"The test results do not indicate that there is a significant difference between registered domestic facilities and registered foreign facilities in thisregard," the FDA stated. "This is a significant percentage of the database."
To fix the problems the FDA plans contact the US agents or the operators of registered facilitiesto correct the information. It will also improve the coding on the registration system to check the validity of the data being entered.
A FDA will also conduct a second notification test in 2007 to determine whether the accuracy of theemergency contact information in the registration database has improved.
The rules require food companies and storage operators to update any existing facility registrations if any of the mandatory informationhas changed and the plant is continuing in business under the same ownership as existed when the initial registrationwas submitted.
The Bioterrorism Act was passed in 2002 to ensure the safety of the US food supply from aterrorist attack. Among other procedures required under the law, the act requires all domestic andforeign facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold food for human or animal consumption toregister the with FDA.
Section 306 of the act, also mandates strict record keeping requirements for those whomanufacture, process, pack, transport, distribute, receive, hold or import food to the US.
The US agent acts as a communications link between FDA and the foreign facility based in the US.The FDA considers providing information to the US agent the same as providing information directlyto the foreign facility.