Food safety and public health: interaction of science and law in the federal regulatory process.

The programs of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which operates under a broad mandate of regulatory authority provided by the Congress in the form of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, demonstrate the way in which science and law interact to protect public health through the regulatory process. In particular, sections 402, 406, and 409 of the Act provide the means for regulating both new and old food products approved for use by the petition process as well as foods which present a potential hazard because of environmental accidents which result in residues of undesirable or dangerous chemical substances. The episodes of foods contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) or polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), and the manner in which action levels or guidelines were developed to regulate the allowable levels of these chemicals in foods, describe the pragmatic way in which FDA protects public health by restricting the allowable levels of chemical substances in foods.