WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – The Meals and Drug Administration is suspending a high quality management program for testing of fluid milk and different dairy merchandise as a result of diminished capability in its meals security and vitamin division, in line with an inner e-mail seen by Reuters.
The suspension is one other disruption to the nation’s meals security applications after the termination and departure of 20,000 staff of the Division of Well being and Human Providers, which incorporates the FDA, as a part of President Donald Trump’s effort to shrink the federal workforce.
The FDA this month additionally suspended present and creating applications that ensured correct testing for bird flu in milk and cheese and pathogens just like the parasite Cyclospora in different meals merchandise.
Efficient Monday, the company suspended its proficiency testing program for Grade “A” uncooked milk and completed merchandise, in line with the e-mail despatched within the morning from the FDA’s Division of Dairy Security and addressed to “Community Laboratories.”
Grade “A” milk, or fluid milk, meets the best sanitary requirements.
The testing program was suspended as a result of FDA’s Moffett Middle Proficiency Testing Laboratory, a part of its division overseeing meals security, “is now not in a position to present laboratory assist for proficiency testing and knowledge evaluation,” the e-mail stated.
An HHS spokesperson stated the laboratory was already set to be decommissioned earlier than the workers cuts and although proficiency testing can be paused throughout the transition to a brand new laboratory, dairy product testing will proceed.
The Trump administration has proposed slicing $40 billion from the company.
The FDA’s proficiency testing applications guarantee consistency and accuracy throughout the nation’s community of meals security laboratories. Laboratories additionally depend on these high quality management exams to fulfill requirements for accreditation.
“The FDA is actively evaluating different approaches for the upcoming fiscal yr and can hold all taking part laboratories knowledgeable as new data turns into out there,” the e-mail stated.
(Reporting by Leah; Modifying by Sandra Maler Douglas; Modifying by Sandra Maler and Chizu Nomiyama)
