In the wake of Zilmax situation, the United States Food and Drug
Administration is allowing complaints about food safety, including drugs, to be
filed via the internet.
So why not Canada too?
Merck withdrew Zilmax beef promotant from the market after Tyson,
then other meat packers, said they had seen so many crippled cattle that they
would no longer buy those fed Zilmax.
More recently, university researchers say they believe there were
thousands of cattle deaths at feedlots using Zilmax, yet less than 300 reports
had been filed with the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA says it has opened a new Web portal designed to give food
manufacturers, drug manufacturers and the general public the opportunity to
report safety issues with the food delivered to livestock nationwide.
The Safety Reporting Portal aims to “streamline the process of
reporting product safety issues” to both the FDA and the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) through both voluntary and mandatory reporting, according to the
site.
It invites reports about safety issues with a specific product or
potential harmful effects they believe are related to the product.
Veterinarians, health care providers, public health officials, consumers and
researchers are included on the list of people that the agencies want to hear
from in the event of food safety problems stemming from animal food given to
livestock.
The portal is part of a continuing effort by the FDA to establish
more effective product safety channels to protect the food chain, according to
the site.
We could surely benefit from something similar in Canada.
