Food Safety: Federal Efforts to Ensure Imported Food Safety Are Inconsistent and Unreliable

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed: (1) findings from its recent report in which it pointed out how limitations in the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) authority and approach for regulating imported foods adversely affect its ability to ensure food safety; (2) how FDA and the Food Safety and Inspection Service's (FSIS) procedures for selecting shipments to review result in the ineffective targeting of inspection resources; and (3) how weaknesses in FDA's and Customs Service's controls allows unscrupulous importers to market unsafe products.