FDA Creates New Import Alert for Imported Foods Contaminated by Filth
FDA created a new import alert March 4 for imported foods contaminated with filth. Import Alert 99-46, titled “Detention Without Physical Examination of Imported Human Foods due to Filth,” will apply to specific firms and products adulterated due to filth. “Countrywide Detention Without Physical Examination (DWPE) recommendations due to filth are covered in other applicable import alerts (IA),” FDA said.
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“The FDA has found various food products that appear to be adulterated because they contain filth (including but not limited to insect, rodent, other animal filth, and/or mold),” the agency said. Under the new import alert, “divisions may detain, without physical examination, the indicated products from the firms identified on the Red List of this Import Alert.” No products have yet been listed as of press time.
Specific products from an individual firm may be added to the red list of the import alert if there have been at least three detentions in a recent six-month period or less, and the detentions represent at least 25% of the total shipments of that product examined “in the applicable time period as known to the recommending district or unit,” FDA said.
Once listed, owners of shipments detained under the import alert can seek release of an individual shipment by providing evidence that the shipment does not contain filth, including by way of private laboratory analysis. “Following receipt and review of analytical results, the FDA may, at its discretion, collect and analyze audit samples before rendering a final decision on the admissibility of the article,” FDA said.
To get a product removed from the import alert, the relevant company must provide information “to adequately demonstrate that the firm has resolved the conditions that gave rise to the appearance of the violation,” FDA said. Per normal agency procedure, “a minimum of five (5) consecutive non-violative commercial shipments should be offered for import before the Agency may consider that the appearance of the violation has been removed.”