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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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. But that's changing as a result of recent international treaties. Now, more and more food is traveling in international circles.
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/.
While in the Commissioner's office, Levitt was instrumental in launching the nutrition labeling program and in speeding the availability of new drugs for desperately ill patients. At the Center for Radiological Health, he has had major responsibility for developing the Agency's mammography quality standards program and implementing the Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990.
Mr. Levitt is a magna cum laude graduate of Cornell University. He graduated cum laude with a J.D. from Boston University. He has received numerous awards including the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award in 1992.
Additional background information on FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
FDA Almanac: CFSAN or all of FDA