The GAO released a report today detailing the failures of FDA and USDA to protect our food supply. As described in the report USDA and FDA Need to Better Ensure Prompt and Complete Recalls of Potentially Unsafe Food, the GAO investigation discovered that the agencies were often slow to respond to indications of contamination in the food supply, allowing contaminated food to reach the shelves and consumers before a recall. The GAO blamed the failures in the food safety system in part on the lack of recall authority available to FDA and USDA. Whereas FDA has specific authority to recall defective medical devices, it does not have the same authority to recall listeria-ridden meat products. The GAO called on Congress to close these loopholes in the food safety system. From the report highlights: GAO’s analysis of recalls in 2003 showed that about 38 percent and 36 percent of recalled food was ultimately recovered in recalls overseen by USDA and FDA, respectively. These agencies also told GAO of instances in which companies were slow to reveal where they had distributed the food or provided inaccurate customer lists. That distribution information is critical because USDA’s and FDA’s primary role in recalls is to monitor the effectiveness of a company’s recall actions. To do so, the agencies contact a sample of the distribution chain from these lists to verify that customers in the food distribution chain received notice of the recall, and that they located the food and removed it from the marketplace. However, the methodology that the agencies use for selecting the customers to check can result in entire segments of complex distribution chains being overlooked. Moreover, GAO found that the agencies did not complete verification checks for some recalls before the shelf life of the food expired. In addition, consumer groups and others question the usefulness of USDA’s and FDA’s efforts to communicate with the public, suggesting alternatives such as posting notices in grocery stores and direct notification of consumers.