Pesticides: Adulterated Imported Foods Are Reaching U.S. Grocery Shelves

Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) pesticide monitoring program, focusing on whether: (1) federal deterrents are adequate to prevent pesticide-adulterated food from reaching U.S. grocery shelves; and (2) FDA is using its resources to maximize detection of adulterated shipments.

Recommendations

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Matter	Status	Comments
To effectively deter importers from distributing pesticide-adulterated foods and to penalize them appropriately when they do so, Congress may wish to consider amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to add to the list of prohibited acts the distribution of sampled foods without FDA release.	Closed – Not Implemented	No legislation that would implement this recommendation was introduced in the 103rd or 104th Congresses. At this time, it is not known when, or if, relevant legislation will be introduced.
To effectively deter importers from distributing pesticide-adulterated foods and to penalize them appropriately when they do so, Congress may wish to consider amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide the Secretary of Health and Human Services with authority to: (1) impose civil administrative penalties on importers who illegally distribute food shipments commensurate with the potential danger posed to public health and in an amount sufficient to deter such distributions and remove an importer's economic incentive for distributing adulterated foods; and (2) order importers who have repeatedly distributed shipments before FDA releases them to store sampled shipments in Customs-controlled warehouses until they are released.	Closed – Implemented	P.L. 104-170, enacted August 3, 1996, amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to provide the Secretary of Health and Human Services with the authority to assess civil money penalties for distribution of pesticide-adulterated foods.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Department of Health and Human Services	To increase the effectiveness of FDA efforts to detain suspect shipments, the Secretary of Health and Human Services should direct the Commissioner, FDA, to instruct districts to issue documentary sampling notices to ensure that shipments of the same food from the same grower arriving simultaneously with or soon after sampled shipments are not distributed until the sample is determined to be free of prohibited pesticide residues, with a reasonable deadline for the test results to be communicated to Customs and the importer.	Closed – Implemented FDA issued procedural guidance that partially implemented the recommendation. The guidance instructed field offices to collect compliance samples of multiple shipments that are suspected of containing illegal pesticide residues. The guidance, however, does not mandate the procedure for samples collected during routine surveillance.
Department of Health and Human Services	To increase the effectiveness of FDA efforts to detain suspect shipments, the Secretary of Health and Human Services should direct the Commissioner, FDA, to extend to the districts the responsibility for technical review and initiation of automatic detention without Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition approval when doing so is within the districts' technical capability.	Closed – Not Implemented The Department does not concur because it believes that headquarters review provides a uniform national perspective. This issue may surface in planned hearings. The recommendation is over 2 years old.

Full Report

Full Report (34 pages)

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Chuck Young

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Topics

Agriculture and Food

Agricultural productsConsumer protectionContaminated foodsCustoms administrationFines (penalties)Food and drug lawFood inspectionImport regulationPesticidesSafety regulation