The FDA has taken steps to initiate an overhaul in how companies deal with contaminated food with a multi-layered law that will focus on prevention rather than reaction.
The FDA's Food Safety Modernization Act is being called one of the most comprehensive and sweeping reform policies initiated in American food safety since 1906.
Signed into law by President Obama in 2011, the law has had its first two regulations go into affect today- the Preventative Controls for Human and Animal Food.
The Preventative Controls for Human Food establish a baseline for risk assessment and prevention that attempts to stop outbreaks before they have a chance to start, and would hold food providers liable should they not abide by the rules. It makes use of food processors to manage and identify risk.
The Preventative Controls for Animal Food do the same, but with the unique elements of animal food industry.
The idea would be to make food providers actively identify contamination risks and have a plan to deal with it. The law would seek to prevent mass food poisoning, which is the cause of around 3,000 deaths per year, according to NBC News.
"Rather than just react to outbreaks, we are requiring food facilities to take measures to prevent them from the get-go," said FDA Senior Adviser Jenny Scott.
There are other regulations included in the law that will ensure the safety of imported foods and food from farms; these regulations will likely be implemented within a years time, according to Vox.
