It's been just over a month since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Food and Drug Administration agreed to better collaborate to strengthen seafood inspection, improve seafood safety and quality and prevent economic fraud.
But the renewed partnership is already yielding results, said Timothy Hansen, director of the NOAA's Seafood Inspection Program, on Friday.
One of the chief orchestrators of the agreement, Hansen was all too familiar with the lack of communication between the two agencies, having joined NOAA from the FDA three-plus years ago.
Then in March, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report called out the two agencies, as well as U.S. Customs and Border Protection, for collaborating ineffectively by failing to identify a common goal, establish joint strategies or agree on responsibilities. For example, each agency has its own laboratories and methodologies for seafood species identification, according to the GAO report.
But by late October, NOAA and FDA had hammered out a policy to improve interagency collaboration.
"We've redefined how we react [to seafood safety problems] at the field level and share information. It will be a big help to the seafood industry," said Hansen.
"The philosophy was to do our own thing. But we finally realized we need to support each other," he explained. "We hope to be better partners with the FDA to help it better cover the bases with seafood safety."
December 6, 2009
