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Welcome to Andy's Take. I am Dr. Murray Lumpkin, FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for International and Special Programs. FDA Commissioner von Eschenbach has been in China this week with Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt for consultations with our Chinese counterparts and for the opening of the three Chinese locations of FDA’s new China Office. I am delighted to have the chance today to discuss what this means for you.
My Take is that you and your family may consume or use many FDA-regulated products that are grown, manufactured, and assembled in different parts of the globe, including China. Thus, I hope you will be very interested in what is being done on your behalf to help ensure the safety of those products. The efforts this week in China are two-fold. One of them is to open the three new Chinese locations where FDA has experts “on the ground” in the areas of China where many of these products originate. Staff from our new FDA locations in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, have already been selected. They are already working to further enhance and strengthen our cooperation with our Chinese counterparts, with Chinese industry, and with other U.S. government agencies in China to help ensure that FDA-regulated products produced in China for the U.S. market meet FDA standards for safety and quality.
The second goal of this trip has been to conduct workshops with our Chinese counterparts on sharing information regarding regulatory processes to enhance food safety. In these workshops technical and scientific experts from the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health discussed with Chinese experts the science behind possible policy reforms aimed at further improving the safety of food. They also evaluated the response to and treatment of melamine contamination and other food borne outbreaks and considered how to assist the Chinese government in its ongoing efforts to improve its food safety systems.
In the coming weeks you will hear of FDA setting up shop in still other foreign locations in regions of the world. As we continue to enjoy the benefits of food and medical products imported from countries all over the globe, the FDA will increase its permanent international presence so that it can better fulfill its mission to protect and promote your health.
I hope you will check back here next week for another Andy’s Take. Thank you for listening.
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