Editorial: Last-minute legislation

Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday received new authority to ensure that prescription drugs are safe, but it did not receive enough new oversight to significantly improve the monitoring of the nation's food supply.

The agency's new authority over drugs was tucked inside legislation that renews two FDA programs that collect fees from drug and medical device manufacturers. The fees help offset the FDA's costs of reviewing products submitted for agency approval. Without the legislation - which the House and Senate approved Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, and President Bush signed on Friday - the fee programs would have expired on Friday, forcing layoffs of about 2,000 agency employees.

The legislation's drug safety provisions were inspired by problems with the painkillers Vioxx and Bextra, which were withdrawn from the market in unrelated incidents over the past three years after reports of deaths and other serious side effects.

The FDA now may require further study of medicines and mandate new warning labels, and can fine drug companies for failing to comply. The agency also may now fine companies that fail to complete follow-up studies on approved drugs.

However, while the legislation steps up drug safety efforts, it does not do enough to address the FDA's funding and authority to ensure food safety. The nation's food supply has been riddled with recalls the past year of everything from tainted pet food to bacteria-contaminated lettuce. The latter killed three people and sickened hundreds of others.

The new legislation calls for creation of a new database to track incidents of tainted foods and also requires the FDA to set processing standards for pet foods. But, as a New York Times story noted, the legislation fails to set any other food mandates, such as expanding the inspections of domestic and imported foods. The legislation instead contains a statement that calls on Congress to "work to develop a comprehensive response to the issue of food safety."

It is about time that the FDA was given the power to more strictly oversee the nation's prescription drug supply, and Congress should aggressively move forward to enact the additional necessary changes to adequately safeguard America's food supply.