FDA looks to protect nation's food supply from terrorists

The government spends billions of dollars protecting Americans from terrorism at airports and sporting events.

Now the Food and Drug Administration is taking new action to keep our food safe from widespread contamination, including contamination resulting from terrorism. It's been a long time coming.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act was touted as the most sweeping food safety reform in decades when it became law in 2011, but it has taken five years for the heavily lobbied bill to be finalized. The rule is focused on preventing widespread contamination of or tampering with the nation's food supply.

It includes having food facilities and companies identify areas in which they're vulnerable to attack and submit food defense plans. Consumer advocates, such as J.D. Hanson with the Center for Food Safety, said it’s a good first step, but it's taken way too long and doesn’t go nearly far enough in protecting consumers from the thousands of food poisoning deaths that occur each year.

“If terrorists were doing it, we would be taking more serious action,” Hanson said. “We have a broken system.” The FDA said the final rule is aimed at “preventing intentional adulteration from acts intended to cause wide-scale harm to public health, including acts of terrorism targeting the food supply.”

The agency said the rules don’t target specific foods, but require mitigation strategies for processes in certain registered food facilities.

The FDA said it collaborated with the intelligence community to determine the rules, which have been designed to primarily cover large companies whose “products reach many people." Small companies and some farms are exempted.