Food, beverages, and medicaments are an integral part of an average American’s everyday life. Unfortunately, modern food and medical products companies can use substandard or hazardous food additives and disrupt storage or transportation conditions. Thus, public health may be at risk, and the Food and Drug Administration’s mission is to monitor the safety of the nation’s food and medical devices supply (U.S. Food and Drug Administration 2020). Recently, the FDA has taken a more global approach to regulating food and drugs that Americans rely on, and there are several effects of this globalization.
Some Americans may ask why the U.S. domestic regulatory agency needed to be involved in international programs. The reason for the FDA to create a global strategy with regard to fulfilling its mission is that food import volume increases. For example, in 2019, 32 percent of vegetables and 55 percent of fruit were supplied by other countries (U.S. Food and Drug Administration 2019).
Food market globalization allows Americans to eat more diverse types of food, get access to various analogs of medicines, and buy them at relatively low prices, which are significant benefits. However, there are also the costs of a more globalized food market, including monopolization and poor ecological practices (Bray n.d.). Moreover, imported food usually lacks nutrients and contains artificial preservatives that increase its transportability and negatively affect people’s health.
In recent years, the FDA had to adopt a more advanced strategy for overseeing the introduction of food and drug products into U.S. markets because the way it was done before does not meet the current requirements. In other words, “in the past, FDA’s imported food safety system focused on intercepting unsafe food at the border and preventing its entrance into the U.S. marketplace” (U.S. Food and Drug Administration 2019, 1). After globalization, the FDA changed its strategy by establishing specific food safety standards and not letting the food arrive at the American border (U.S. Food and Drug Administration 2020).
The new strategy also includes more foreign inspections, increased accountability and transparency in the supply chain, and new regulatory and enforcement tools. Finally, the fact that supplied food and drugs are under strict control, U.S.-based businesses can benefit from the new strategy. It is easier for such companies to study the food safety standards and meet the requirements, so they can provide their services and become the leading suppliers of products for the nation.
References
Bray, Siobhan. n.d. “The Global Food System.” The Regis. Web.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2019. FDA Strategy for the Safety of Imported Food. Web.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 2020. “FDA Globalization.” FDA. Web.