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Inside FDA:
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

by Paula Kurtzweil

This is one in a series of articles on FDA activities and concerns.

Olestra garnered headline news when the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 1996, but the agency component that approved the fat substitute may not be well known to many consumers.

This agency component, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), regulates $240 billion worth of domestic food, $15 billion worth of imported foods, and $15 billion worth of cosmetics sold across state lines. This regulation takes place from the products' point of U.S. entry or processing to their point of sale.

CFSAN is one of six centers within FDA. With a work force of about 800, the center promotes and protects the public health and economic interest by ensuring that:

To achieve these goals, the center strives to be a leader in food safety, protect consumers from economic fraud, promote sound nutrition, and encourage innovation.

Recent center activities demonstrate the center's commitment. For example, in approving olestra as the first synthetic fat-based fat substitute, the center's scientific staff evaluated more than 150 studies on olestra's safety. Concerned about olestra's potential ability to reduce nutrient absorption in the body, the center approved olestra on the conditions that vitamins A, D, E, and K be added to olestra-containing foods and that a statement appear on such foods to inform consumers of possible nutrient losses and thus the reason for the addition of the fat-soluble vitamins. The center also requires the statement to warn consumers about the possible side effects of abdominal cramping and loose stools.

A Sampling of Highlights

Examples of other more recent center actions include:

Behind the Scenes

Employees ranging from secretaries and other support staff to highly specialized professionals--such as chemists, microbiologists, toxicologists, food technologists, pathologists, pharmacologists, nutritionists, epidemiologists, mathematicians, and sanitarians--carry out the center's mission.

The center is divided into seven offices dealing with:

Other center offices deal with consumers, industry and other outside groups; field programs; agency administrative tasks; scientific analysis and support; and policy, planning and handling of critical foods' issues.

Most center staff members work out of the center's headquarters in Washington, D.C. The center also operates research facilities in Laurel, Md., and a fisheries research center in Dauphin Island, Ala., and helps staff the National Center for Food Safety and Technology in the Chicago area. Next summer, according to Arnold Borsetti, Ph.D., director of the center's executive operations staff, the center plans to move its molecular biology and seafood safety research laboratories from Davisville, R.I., to Baltimore, Md., where it will share space with the Maryland Center for Marine Biotechnology.

In Touch with Others

Much of the information evaluated by center personnel is gathered by FDA employees across the country. For example, FDA field investigators inspect food and cosmetic companies, examine food shipments from abroad, and collect samples. Laboratory scientists and technicians analyze samples. Compliance officers recommend legal action and follow through on enforcement issues.

Center personnel also work with other government agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health departments, to resolve food safety concerns and economic fraud cases, for example.

Borsetti said the center is increasingly being called on to work with international organizations, such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission--an international food standard-setting organization of the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization--and foreign governments, to help establish internationally recognized safety standards, rules and regulations for imported foods.

"In the past, most of the center's efforts dealt with U.S. products," he said. "But that's changing as a result of recent international treaties. Now, more and more food is traveling in international circles."

That trend will likely continue, he said, consuming much of the center's future focus.

Future Considerations

Other areas that will increasingly draw the center's attention are:

Considering that almost 20 cents of every consumer dollar Americans spend goes to food and cosmetics, these and other concerns for the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition eventually come to rest with American consumers. Center dealings that make news one day, such as the approval of olestra, usually make it to the marketplace another.

Computer users can keep up-to-date on CFSAN activities on the World Wide Web at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/list.html.

Paula Kurtzweil is a member of FDA's public affairs staff.

Center Director

The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is headed by Fred Shank, Ph.D., a nutritionist with a broad interest in food processing, quality and safety; human nutrition; and consumer food practices.

A Ph.D. graduate of the University of Maryland, he joined the center in 1978, after spending seven years as a nutritionist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has held several positions in the center, including deputy director of the division of nutrition and director of the Office of Physical Sciences. He was named center director in 1989.

FDA Consumer magazine (April 1997)

Recent Information About CFSAN

Updated Information: January 16, 1998 Press Release: Shank, Levitt Assume New Management Positions

Additional background information on FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

FDA Almanac [Note, 3-14-2005: This publication is no longer available.]

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