By Ronald L. Doering

Another U.S. President has proposed a consolidation of all food safety functions into a single agency, the Federal Food Safety Agency. Nearly every President since Truman has made a similar proposal including President Obama in 2015.

Calling the current system “illogical” and “fragmented”, and citing the longstanding recommendations of the Government Accountability Office, the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, President Trump announced on June 21, 2018 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the food safety arm of the U.S. Health and Human Service (HHS), would be merged into a new single agency within the USDA. Under Obama’s proposal, it was to report to HHS.