The Food And Drug Administration To Overhaul Foodborne Sickness

The Food and Drug Administration plans to overhaul how it responds to foodborne sickness episodes. FDA has formed what it calls the Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation Network, or Core. The network will include teams of epidemiologists, veterinarians, microbiologists and other experts, who will work fulltime at FDA headquarters. Team members will share information with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agriculture Department, and state and local agencies. The Core effort stems from the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which called for reforms in how the government responds to widespread foodborne illnesses. Dr. Kathleen Gensheimer, the state epidemiologist for Maine, joins FDA to head up the Core network.