More Than a Fourth of FDA Import Refusals Are for Fruits, Vegetables

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By Coral Beach , Food Safety News Apr 12, 2016

When combined, fruits and vegetables were the foods most frequently subject to import refusals by the FDA from 2005 to 2013, followed by fishery products/seafood and the spices/flavorings/salts category.

Mexico, India and China topped the list for the countries with the highest number of refusals during that time frame, according to a new report from the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Relative to the increased volume of food imports during those years, the overall number of refusals declined, but the Food and Drug Administration can’t tell  if that seemingly good news is a result of better food safety compliance by foreign suppliers or a reflection of the agency’s strained budget, according to the report released Wednesday.

The FDA physically inspects about 1 percent of food shipments offered for import to the United States because that’s all its budget can afford, officials reported. With such a low percentage of shipments being inspected, the FDA doesn’t have enough data to extrapolate cause and effect scenarios.

The FDA also doesn’t have enough funding for random tests for pathogens or other food adulterants in import shipments, according to the report. The agency uses a risk-based algorithm to determine what shipments to test, which further muddies the view.

“The nonrandom nature of FDA sampling means that researchers cannot draw inferences about the relative safety of food produced in various countries or the relative risk of certain food products,” according to the report.

“Instead, the conclusions drawn in this report highlight FDA refusals that reveal recurring patterns of import violations in food products, which have repeatedly attracted the attention of FDA inspectors.”

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