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>> David Elder: Hello everybody, my name is David Elder.
I'm director of the Office of Regional Operations,
and I'm here with you today to introduce a new series
of outbreak response field guides that we are posting
on the internet for all of our field staff to use and all
of our regulatory partners to use.
Now one thing that we all know is that the number
of foodborne outbreaks has been increasing over the years.
That's due to a couple of factors.
One, there are still some food safety issues out there;
and two, our ability to detect them has improved.
Of course, what we would rather do is prevent the foodborne
outbreaks from occurring in the first place.
And actually there are a number of plans
on the way to do just that.
We are very interested
in supporting the preventative controls.
We wanna have a very strong enforcement
and inspection program.
We want there to be corporate accountability,
and certainly we expect firms to have detailed knowledge
of their supply chain to assure the safety
of the products that are coming in.
But even though we know that we can't prevent every foodborne
outbreak, when we are faced with a foodborne outbreak,
what we want to do is to improve our response activities.
Now our response needs to be prompt.
We need to investigate thoroughly.
We need to document the findings and collect the evidence
and we really need to control the hazard
that is endangering the public.
So we wanna make sure that the risk is controlled and then
of course that the firm prevents this type
of issue from occurring again.
Now these new field guides are intended to provide us
with the best practices that we've learned over the years
about how to respond to different type
of outbreak situations.
They are going to be hazard and product specific.
So what do I mean by that?
Well, the way we do an outbreak response related to say, E. coli
and leafy greens is going to be different
than the way we do an outbreak response related
to salmonella in peanut butter.
So what we want to do is to take those best practices,
the best science, and regulatory approaches and come
up with a harmonized way of doing outbreak response
that is specific to the product and specific
to the hazard of interest.
When they are completed, they'll be posted on the internet
so that FDA investigators will have ready access,
as well as our state regulatory partners.
There's also going to be a feedback form associated
with the guides because we want them to continue
to represent best practices.
And if our stakeholders find some better ways
of doing things, if the science
or the regulatory approaches change, we wanna make sure
that we're nimble enough
to change these field guides as needed.
Now, I would like to thank a number of people involved
in especially preparing this first field guide.
The framework for this field guide did start with an effort
by the California Food Emergency Response Team,
as well as the response work group associated
with the 50-state Partnership for Food Protection.
And then a number of people in ORA and the Center
for Food Safety worked to further refine it and get it
into the-- into the product that it is today.
So, we think these guides are gonna be a great thing.
We look forward to your use of them and we look forward
to taking advantage
of our improving the outbreak response activities
that ourselves and our state partners do.
If we're doing it well in the same way,
we can readily rely on each other's work.
Thanks very much.