[Federal Register: September 27, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 187)]
[Notices]
[Page 56470-56471]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr27se06-45]
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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Food Safety and Inspection Service
[Docket No. FSIS-2006-0028]
Risk-Based Inspection System
AGENCY: Food Safety and Inspection Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice of public meeting.
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SUMMARY: The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will hold a
public meeting on October 10-11, 2006, to review and discuss the
following issues: (1) Measuring product inherent risk for risk-based
inspection, and
(2) Measuring establishment risk control for risk-based inspection.
In addition, FSIS will begin a discussion on how these two measures of
risk might be used to implement a Risk-Based Inspection System (RBIS).
FSIS will use Resolve, a national non-profit organization, to assist
with the stakeholder input process. Resolve specializes in mediating,
facilitating, and building consensus on solutions to scientifically
complex public policy issues, including those in the areas of food
safety, agriculture, and public health.
DATES: FSIS will hold a public meeting on Tuesday, October 10, and
Wednesday, October 11, 2006, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
ADDRESSES: The public meeting will be held at George Mason University,
3401 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201. The specific room
information for the meeting, directions to the site, and the agenda
will be posted on the risk-based inspection (RBI) Web site at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations_&_policies/Risk_Based_Inspection/.
The meeting will be broadcast electronically for viewing in selected
locations in other parts of the country. Those locations and
information on the telecasts will also be posted on the RBI Web site.
Members of the public are required to pre-register for the meeting (see
Background). Online registration information is also located on the RBI
Web site above.
FSIS welcomes comments on the topics to be discussed at the public
meeting. The Agency's technical papers relating to (1) Measuring
product inherent risk for risk-based inspection, and (2) Measuring
establishment risk control for risk-based inspection are posted at the
FSIS Web site above. Comments on these papers may be submitted by any
of the following methods through October 27, 2006:
Electronic mail: An e-mail box has been established specifically
for RBI comments for the public meeting on October 10-11. Comments can
be submitted to riskbasedinspection@fsis.usda.gov.
Mail, including floppy disks or CD-ROM's: Send to Ellyn Blumberg,
RBI Public Meeting, United States Department of Agriculture, Food
Safety and Inspection Service, 14th & Independence Avenue, SW., Mail
Drop 405 Aerospace, Washington, DC 20250.
Hand-or courier-delivered items: Deliver to Ellyn Blumberg at 901 D
Street, SW., Washington, DC. To deliver these items, the security guard
must first call (202) 690-6520.
Facsimile: Fax RBI comments to (202) 690-6519.
All submissions received must include the Agency name and docket
number FSIS-2006-0028. The comments also will be posted on the Agency's
Web site at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations_&_policies/Risk_Based_Inspection/
.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Tynan for technical information
at (202) 720-3884 or e-mail robert.tynan@fsis.usda.gov. Contact Ellyn
Blumberg for meeting information at (202) 720-0087, Fax (202) 690-6519,
or e-mail ellyn.blumberg@fsis.usda.gov. Persons requiring a sign
language interpreter or other special accommodations should notify the
agency contacts no later than September 26, 2006, at the numbers above
or by e-mail.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
FSIS is the public health regulatory agency in the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) responsible for ensuring that the nation's
commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe,
wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. FSIS is accountable for
protecting the lives and well-being of 295 million U.S. citizens and
millions more around the world.
To meet the realities of food safety and public health challenges,
FSIS is working to make its inspection system
[[Page 56471]]
more risk-based and to continue to implement science-based policies.
Although the Agency acknowledges that some types of meat and poultry
products pose greater health risks than others, and some establishments
control risks better than others, under the current system of
processing inspection, a Consumer Safety Inspector visits every plant
at least once every shift to perform a variety of verification
procedures scheduled by the Performance Based Inspection System (PBIS).
PBIS schedules inspection procedures the same way in all processing
plants, regardless of the particular food safety hazard associated with
the products produced and processes performed at one plant versus
another.
In July 2004, the Agency outlined the basic features of a
predictive model that would permit FSIS to improve resource allocation
by considering the inherent risks and risk control effectiveness of the
many meat and poultry establishments under Federal inspection. Since
that time, FSIS has continued developing and refining these ideas. In
November 2005, FSIS addressed the National Advisory Committee on Meat
and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI) on Agency progress toward a RBIS. In
May 2006, the Agency again addressed NACMPI--this time on ideas the
Agency has on measuring establishment risk control effectiveness for
RBI.
Reductions in the number of illnesses attributed to the consumption
of adulterated meat and poultry products can be achieved by placing
greater inspection and verification emphasis on establishments whose
processes, owing to the nature and volume of their production, require
greater control of the risks. FSIS believes that it can improve public
health by dedicating fewer inspection resources to processing
establishments that produce products that present low inherent risk and
that exercise effective risk control, and shifting those resources
towards processing establishments that produce products that present
high inherent risk and that have less effective risk control.
At this meeting, FSIS will present some ideas about how the Agency
can develop measures of inherent food safety risk for federally-
inspected meat and poultry processing establishments and to solicit
stakeholder input on the subject. The Agency will also accept
stakeholder input on how to measure establishment control of risk. FSIS
previously presented information on this topic at a meeting of NACMPI
last May. Finally, FSIS will accept stakeholder input on some initial
concepts on how the two measures of risk might be used to implement
RBIS.
FSIS is using Resolve, a national non-profit organization, to
assist with the stakeholder input process. Resolve specializes in
mediating, facilitating, and building consensus on solutions to
scientifically complex public policy issues, including those in the
areas of food safety, agriculture, and public health.
All interested parties are welcome to attend the meetings and to
submit written comments and suggestions through October 27, 2006. The
comments and the official transcript of the meeting, when they become
available, will be posted on the Agency's Web site at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations_&_policies/Risk_Based_Inspection/.
All comments received in response to this notice will be considered
part of the public record.
Members of the public are required to pre-register for the meeting.
Online registration information is located at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations_&_policies/Risk_Based_Inspection/
.
Additional Public Notification
Public awareness of all segments of rulemaking and policy
development is important. Consequently, in an effort to ensure that
minorities, women, and persons with disabilities are aware of this
notice, FSIS will announce it on-line through the FSIS Web page located
at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations/2006_Notices_Index/. FSIS
will also make copies of this Federal Register publication available
through the FSIS Constituent Update, which is used to provide
information regarding FSIS policies, procedures, regulations, Federal
Register notices, FSIS public meetings, recalls, and other types of
information that could affect or would be of interest to constituents
and stakeholders. The update is communicated via Listserv, a free
electronic mail subscription service for industry, trade and farm
groups, consumer interest groups, allied health professionals, and
other individuals who have asked to be included. The update is
available on the FSIS Web page. Through the Listserv and Web page, FSIS
is able to provide information to a much broader and more diverse
audience. In addition, FSIS offers an e-mail subscription service which
provides automatic and customized access to selected food safety news
and information. This service is available at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/news_and_events/email_subscription/.
Options range from recalls to
export information to regulations, directives and notices. Customers
can add or delete subscriptions themselves and have the option to
password protect their account.
Done at Washington, DC on: September 21, 2006.
Barbara J. Masters,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. E6-15866 Filed 9-26-06; 8:45 am]
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