Alexander Statement on Inspector General Alert that FDA’s Slow Food Recall Process Puts Americans at Risk

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 9 – Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today made the following statement on today’s inspector general early alert that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) lack of effective and efficient food recall procedures left Americans “at risk of illness or death.”

“It's the job of the FDA to ensure that when we go to the grocery store, the foods we buy won’t make our families sick. Today’s alert tells us that the FDA isn’t doing enough to prioritize its food safety mission for American consumers—allowing contaminated foods to sit on shelves for 81 days in one case and 165 days in another. I hope to find the FDA is taking seriously all of the inspector general’s recommendations and will take the steps necessary to immediately focus on its core mission and get its house in order so Americans aren’t bringing potentially dangerous food into theirs.”

In 2011, Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act to give the FDA new authority and ability to protect the nation’s food supply. The FDA received $987 million in fiscal year 2016 alone to support food-related activities at the agency.

A link to today’s report from the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) can be found here. According to CBS News, the investigator conducting the audit said today’s early alert is only the third time in 27 years the OIG felt the need to issue this kind of early alert.  

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