President Bush's fiscal 2008 budget request includes a $28 million increase and adds nearly 100 full-time equivalents for FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition over funding Congress has proposed for fiscal 2007.

Total funding for CFSAN announced Feb. 5 in the president's fiscal 2008 budget request is $466.7 million, compared to the $438.7 million Congress proposed in a fiscal 2007 omnibus appropriation (H. J. Res. 20) covering all federal agencies other than the Defense and Homeland Security Departments. H. J. Res. 20 also funds 2,613 FTEs in CFSAN, compared to 2,702 in the president's request, according to FDA's budget report.

FDA, like most federal agencies, currently is operating under a continuing resolution (H. J. Res. 102) the 109th Congress passed Dec. 9, 2006 to support federal spending through Feb. 15. Spending was set roughly at fiscal 2006 levels by H. J. Res. 102. Those levels are also proposed in the omnibus bill for the remainder of the fiscal year.

In the event Congress fails to enact a budget by Feb. 15, federal spending either would stop, or be facilitated through another continuing resolution.

"We will not have true comparisons until after [a fiscal 2007 budget] is enacted," Patrick McGarey, director of FDA's Office of Budget Formulation and Presentation, said during a conference call on the budget proposal.

CFSAN's ongoing goals include improving dietary supplement safety and improving nutrition by implementing changes to food labeling.

Enforcement activities, managed by the Office of Regulatory Affairs, will focus particularly on products that are unapproved new drugs due to the presence of precursor steroids, supplements with unsubstantiated structure function claims and supplements containing prescription drug ingredients, according to CFSAN.

"We don't see the president's budget including increased funding for FDA and implementing DSHEA," Natural Products Association Executive Director and CEO David Seckman told "The Tan Sheet."

"We've been in the same position in the past and will continue to ask for increased funds" for FDA, Seckman adds.

Funding levels in the House's proposal "will have significant impact on FY 2007 performance for the Foods Program," according to CFSAN's narrative on the proposed budget.

Setting CFSAN funding under H. J. Res. 20 would eliminate 120 FTEs from the center's field food program, CFSAN states.

Additionally, compared to the president's request, the House's proposal would reduce the "number of high-risk foods performance goal inspections planned for FY 2007" by almost 20 percent, or 1,015 fewer inspections, the center says.

"Firms making high-risk products that received annual inspections in previous years will be inspected on a biennial schedule instead," according to CFSAN.

The FDA foods division needs funding levels included in the fiscal 2008 budget request "to complete mission-critical activities," particularly actions concerning food safety and responding to food-borne outbreaks, the center states.

The recent E. coli bacteria contamination of some U.S. fresh spinach supplies and ongoing investigations into the safety of fresh produce products led to "significant shifts" in CFSAN's 2006 resources, the center says.

For fiscal 2008, the president requests $10.6 million for FDA activities related to food safety, with $4 million and eight FTEs specifically for CFSAN to "enhance FDA's ability to help industry mitigate the risks of increased food-borne outbreaks."

The Government Accountability Office, in testimony presented before the House Subcommittee on Agriculture Feb. 8, recommended a unified food safety system to improve federal oversight. Currently, 15 agencies administer "at least 30" food safety laws, creating a "fragmented system [that] has caused inconsistent oversight, ineffective coordination and inefficient use of resources," GAO states.

The National Uniformity for Food Act was introduced in Congress in 2006 to unify warning label requirements and pre-empt state-imposed requirements like California's Prop 65. However, after the House passed NUFA in March 2006, the measure was not taken up by the Senate before the 109th session ended (¹ 'The Tan Sheet' March 13, 2006, In Brief).

- Jessica Lake (j.lake@elsevier.com)

CFSAN Expects Funding Proposed By Congress Would Slow Food Safety Work

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