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November 19, 2002 |
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The Contaminants and Natural Toxicants Subcommittee of FDA's Food Advisory Committee will meet on December 4 and 5, 2002, to discuss FDA's draft action plan for addressing the issue of acrylamide in food. The general function of the Committee is to provide advice and recommendations to the agency on FDA's regulatory issues. The December Subcommittee meeting, which will be open to the public, will be held at the Inn and Conference Center, University of Maryland University College, 3501 University Boulevard East, Adelphi, MD 20783, 301-985-7300, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. An agenda for the meeting will be available on the Internet at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/list.html and at the meeting location on the day of the meeting.
Interested persons may present data, information, or views, orally or in writing, on issues pending before the Committee. Written submissions may be made to the contact person by November 20, 2002. Oral presentations from the public will be scheduled between approximately 4:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on December 4, 2002, on issues related to acrylamide in food. Time allotted for each presentation may be limited. Those desiring to make formal oral presentations should notify the contact person before November 20, 2002, and submit a brief statement of the general nature of the evidence or arguments they wish to present, the names and addresses of proposed participants, and an indication of the approximate presentation time requested.
The contact person is Dr. Henry Kim, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (HFS-306), FDA, 5100 Paint Branch Pkwy., College Park, MD 20740, 301-436-2023, or FDA Advisory Committee Information Line, 1-800-741-8138 (301-443-0572 in the Washington, DC area), code 10564.
In October 2002, FDA updated its information on Food Code adoptions by States, Territories, and Tribal Nations. Under a contract with the Association of Food and Drug Officials, significant progress continues to be reported by agencies across the United States. Twenty-one States and Territories now have Food Codes based on the 1999 version, representing over 35 percent of the population. Mississippi and Puerto Rico are the first agencies to adopt the 2001 version of the FDA Food Code, and a number of other jurisdictions are in the process of adopting the 2001 Code. Seventy-six percent of the United States population resides in States and Territories that model their retail food safety codes after one of the FDA models dating back to 1993.
For detailed information and maps, see http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~ear/fcadopt.html.
More than 11,500 copies of Science and Our Food Supply have been distributed since its official release in October 2001. Produced by FDA and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), Science and Our Food Supply is a supplementary food science curriculum for middle level and high school science classes. Orders for the curriculum result from ongoing publicity, including advertisements in NSTA Reports, on many websites, in newspaper and newsletter articles, through presentations, and by word-of-mouth referrals. Media coverage included The Washington Post, Food Chemical News, CNN.com, and District Administrator, to name a few.
Teachers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, and other foreign countries ordered the curriculum. The five states that have ordered the most copies are New York, Texas, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Currently, orders are evenly split between middle level and high school classes. The program is being used in a variety of classes including general science, biology, life science, chemistry, physical science, health, and family and consumer science.
Teachers who use Science and Our Food Supply are given an opportunity to provide feedback. The response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Teachers were asked to rate Science and Our Food Supply as a whole, with a response of 1 (equaling don't agree) to a response of 5 (equaling strongly agree). Teachers reported the following:
Middle level and high school teachers who would like to receive a free copy of Science and Our Food Supply, may order online at http://ecommerce.nsta.org/fda.
More science teachers applied for the 2002 FDA-NSTA Professional Development Program in Food Science than did so in each of the previous 2 years. This is encouraging since the application period began in the fall of 2001. To date, 75 middle level and 75 high school teachers have participated in the program. During their week in the Washington area, the teachers toured the new FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) labs and met with CFSAN scientists who enthusiastically "showed-off" their work. The teachers also went on field trips to see food safety in action on the farm at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center and at a seafood processing plant in Baltimore.
As a result of participating in the program, the teachers are required to hold a daylong workshop in their districts or states to teach other teachers how to successfully use Science and Our Food Supply in their classrooms. These teachers reach, on average, another 25 teachers. Therefore, by the end of this year, the first 150 teachers through the program (2000-2002) will reach another 3,750 teachers.
The FDA-NSTA Professional Development Program in Food Science was funded for 2003. A concerted effort will be made to encourage participation by teachers from states that have not yet had a teacher participate. Priority will be given to applications from the states of Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Utah, as well as the District of Columbia. Applications are available online at http://www.nsta.org/fdaapplication.
Impact of Science and Our Food Supply Grows
As announced in October 2001, Albertson's, a national grocery store chain funded NSTA to develop a food safety Professional Institute Workshop for teachers focusing on Science and Our Food Supply. The first 3-day workshop was held in Pullman, Washington, in July 2002, and was attended by 25 teachers. Collaborators for this program were Washington State University and the University of Idaho Departments of Food Science. The next workshops will be in Chicago in January 2003 and in the spring or summer of 2003 in Northern and Southern California.
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Food Safety Initiative Staff E-mail: cwise@cfsan.fda.gov |
Office Number: (301) 436-2125 · FAX (301) 436-2605 CFSAN Web site: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/ |