F-D-A. Three little letters that play a big role in food safety. The Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition regulates nearly $470 billion in domestic and imported food through facility inspection, sample analysis, laboratory research and monitoring imported goods. But recently, USA Today reported that this agency, which touches so many aspects of our lives, failed to meet their food safety inspection goals.

The FDA contracts about half of their inspections to state authorities, and in turn, aims to audit 7% of those inspections to ensure the procedures the states use are part of the agency’s uniformed standards. But in 2007-2008, the FDA was unable to reach their audit goal of seven percent. In that year, the agency’s goal was to conduct audits in 39 states, but fell short in at least 17 of those states, including five that were not audited at all. And while 7% may sound like small potatoes, it’s a lot more audits than you think. Texas, for example, had 685 facilities scheduled for inspection in 2008. The FDA’s goal was to audit 48 of those inspections. And that is just one state. (By the way, it’s important to remember that in these audits, the FDA is checking the accuracy and thoroughness of inspections, not performing the inspection on the facility.)

The FDA says many of these audits were missed because of scheduling challenges and poor follow-up. Additionally, major foodborne illness outbreaks consumed FDA and state staffers’ time and resources. Investigating and controlling these outbreaks is always a priority, and audits generally get put on the back burner.

But are less audits occurring because of an increase in outbreaks or are outbreaks occurring because facilities are being audited less frequently? Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

This serves as a good reminder that the FDA isn’t just responsible for inspecting food processing plants. This agency works to protect public health by monitoring the safety of our food and our pets’ food, human and veterinary medicine, cosmetics and medical devices, like automatic external defibrillator machines, just to name a few of its responsibilities (Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act). If you add keeping track of our nation’s blood supply and monitoring radiation levels of our electronic devices to those responsibilities, the FDA has a pretty full plate.

Many food safety experts agree that the FDA isn’t doing a bad job of juggling and balancing so many areas of concern. The agency is just underfunded and lacks the resources to balance all these responsibilities, they say. New food safety regulation could be a solution, but is adding more really the answer? If the FDA doesn’t have enough resources to implement and enforce current regulations, how can they be expected to implement and enforce additional ones? In fact, many food safety experts and organizations believe federal, state and local food regulatory agencies should work closely to effectively enforce current food safety regulations, instead of simply adding new ones.

But whether more legislation and regulations, or additional funding and resources are the answer, one thing is certain, our current food safety system needs reform. Food safety is a pretty big job, and it’s important for all of us to have enough trained experts at all levels of the food safety chain, from federal to local, to maintain our high quality food safety standards.

With so much recent debate over how the federal government should improve food safety, we decided it was time to get some straight talk from an expert. Our latest Chew on This podcast has the answers and info you've been looking for on what the federal government is doing to keep our food safe.

Recent food safety outbreaks and recalls have caused many to question the efficiency and effectiveness of our federal food safety system. In this new podcast, Dr. Ron DeHaven, Chief Executive Officer of the AVMA, explains which federal agencies work to keep our food safe and discusses what the government can do to improve food safety.

Listen now.