The regulatory environment past and future--incentive or impediment to developments in food science and technology: a perspective from FDA.

The best system for protecting public health is one that involves two layers of control before food reaches the consumer. The first layer of control is the industry's clear responsibility to prepare food that is safe. The second layer of control is the monitoring that is provided by government to ensure that the industry is doing its job and is in fact producing safe food. While some may view this "second layer" as an impediment in the development and marketing of new technologies, there is another way to look at the "regulatory environment". The regulatory environment itself, is not an impediment to the development of food science and technology. The regulatory environment, with all its components--scientists, consumers, industry, and Congress--defines "safety" within the context of today's technology, scientific capability, and tolerance level of the lay public. The entire regulatory environment serves to guide the development of food science and technology by providing signposts, in the form of scientifically sound regulatory decisions. The scientific basis of these decisions becomes building blocks on which to rest further refinement of the technology, product, ingredient, or packaging material or on which research in related technologies or research in innovative directions can build. This scientific groundwork becomes very important as more and more companies move away from having self-contained research laboratories toward using commercial laboratories and academic institutions, as well as participating in cooperative research endeavors to meet food safety and product development research needs.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)