Ensuring the Safety of Imported Foods and Animal Feed: Comparability of Food Safety Systems and Import Practices of Foreign Countries; Public Hearing; Request for Comments

Résumé

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing a public hearing regarding new FDA initiatives for ensuring the safety of foods and animal feed imported into the United States. The purpose of the public hearing is to provide stakeholders the opportunity to discuss FDA's use of international comparability assessments as a mechanism to enhance the safety of imported foods and animal feed and lessons learned through equivalence determinations. In addition, there will be a separate discussion of FDA's efforts to gather information from regulators in other countries regarding the regulatory policies, practices, and programs they currently use to ensure the safety of foods and animal feed imported into their countries. In a separate notice published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register, FDA is announcing a 1-day public meeting to discuss implementation of the imports provisions found in the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).