Int'l Collaboration Can Improve Product Safety

International Collaboration Can Improve Product Safety

United States eager to share best practices, listen to other countries: Better and more universal ways to ensure food and product safety worldwide can be found through international cooperation, U.S. officials say.

"We must work with our trading partners to share best practices and agree on common standards of science-based approaches for food safety," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said October 1.

According to Leavitt, all relevant U.S. agencies need to make efforts to develop and increase international cooperation that follow a unified strategy.

In response to the public outcry over tainted food and recalls of unsafe consumer products, mostly from China, the U.S. government has launched a review of the U.S. food and product safety system to find a method to make it more effective in the rapidly changing global trade environment. The government also has been surveying U.S. industries to identify best practices. U.S. officials said the United States is willing to share findings produced by these reviews and is eager to hear best practices identified by other countries.

An interagency working group on import safety headed by Leavitt submitted an outline of a new food and product safety strategy to the White House in September. It is scheduled to present specific recommendations to the president in November.

U.S. lawmakers have joined in the effort by holding hearings on the issue and introducing several bills designed to improve food and product safety systems.

Andrew Krulwich, a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein LLP and a former Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) commissioner, told USINFO product safety incidents earlier in 2007 exposed weaknesses in those systems, particularly in regard to imports. Imports, which constitute an increasing share of foods and consumer goods sold on the U.S. market, are projected to triple in value by 2015, according to U.S. government sources.

Nancy Nord, the acting CPSC chair, has acknowledged that her agency's inspection and enforcement authorities with respect to imported products are "not as strong as they need to be."

Although imported products make up about one-third of all products sold on the U.S. market, about two-thirds of product recalls in recent years concerned imported goods. That share is growing, according to CPSC, the federal regulatory agency charged with ensuring the safety of consumer products.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a member of the working group, said the existing programs based on bilateral agreements designed to ensure import security also can be used to ensure the safety of imported products, for the most part, before they reach U.S. ports.

But U.S. officials emphasize that, with millions of containers entering U.S. ports every year, "we can't inspect our way to safety," as Leavitt put it.

In its initial September report, the group urged a shift in emphasis in the U.S. import safety strategy from border inspections and interventions to identifying and managing risks through every step of the product lifecycle.

Warren Maruyama, general counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said that a new strategy would require cooperation with foreign governments and producers as well as U.S. importers and retailers to build safety into the design, manufacturing and distribution process. Such cooperative arrangements would be backed up by the government and private sector through verifications, certifications and border inspections, he said.

CPSC has agreements with its counterparts in several countries to cooperate on standards development and harmonization as well as on inspection and enforcement efforts. By the end of 2008, the commission expects to have formal memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with 17 countries and economic areas including the European Union, India, Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile.

In September, the commission reached agreement with China's product safety agency that goes beyond a 2005 MOU in many respects.

"We will be looking for meaningful cooperation on the ground -- that means not just with the Chinese government, but also with industry at both ends of the supply chain," Nord said in a September 11 news release.

Krulwitch noted, however, that products exported by countries other than China also have had safety problems.

That is why, U.S. officials said, cooperation on the safety of food and consumer products also should take place at a multilateral level and involve more countries. They said that maintaining safety standards is in the interest of both exporting and importing countries because only this can ensure the high level of consumer confidence essential for international trade.

The full text of the CPSC news release on the agreement with China can be found on the agency's Web site. Additional information about the interagency working group on import safety can be accessed at the Group's Web site.

See also "Consumer Protection Has Deep Roots in U.S. History," "U.S. Food Safety Agencies, Industry Seek More Import Regulation" and "Safety Reform for U.S. Consumer Goods Urged in Response to Challenges."

ENDS

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