Office of the Inspector General: FDA Must Boost Efficiency
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) domestic food inspections “did not always take action when it uncovered significant inspection violations-those found during inspections classified as ‘Official Action Indicated’ (OAI). When it did take action, it commonly relied on facilities to voluntarily correct the violations. Also, it rarely took advantage of the new administrative tools provided by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Moreover, FDA actions were not always timely nor did they always result in the correction of these violations. Further, FDA consistently failed to conduct timely follow-up inspections to ensure that facilities corrected significant inspection violations.”
The new OIG report discloses FDA’s spending on domestic food facility inspections from 2004 to 2015. Data analyses show spending on domestic food inspections has dropped off in the years since the passage of FSMA.
The OIG made the following recommendations: