FDA food safety official resigns, cites flaws in agency's crisis response
Source: Washington Post
Less than two months after an outside group offered a scathing indictment of the Food and Drug Administration’s structure and culture and recommended major restructuring, the agency’s top food safety official resigned, citing shortcomings in the FDA’s ability to handle foodborne illness crises, including the recent baby formula shortage.
Frank Yiannas, the deputy commissioner for the office of food policy and response, will leave his post next month, he wrote to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf on Wednesday.
“The decentralized structure of the foods program that you and I both inherited significantly impaired FDA’s ability to operate as an integrated food team and protect the public,” Yiannas wrote in the letter obtained by The Washington Post.
He also recommended that Califf restructure the agency to include “a fully empowered and experienced Deputy Commissioner for Foods, with direct oversight of those centers and offices responsible for human and animal foods.”
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By Laura Reiley and Jacob Bogage
Updated January 25, 2023 at 4:46 p.m. EST|Published January 25, 2023 at 3:02 p.m. EST
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/25/fda-food-safety-leadership-changes/
Non-paywalled link: https://archive.is/hTzHX
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