-----Original Message-----
From: microtrace@aol.com
To: sjaganathan@sanford.co.nz
Cc: wmcole@erols.com; seafood@ucdavic.edu
Sent: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 4:01 PM
Subject: Re: Frequent hold ups by US FDA
Attn: Sridhar Jaganathan
Dear Sridhar;
Regarding FDA surveillance sampling and analysis of food imports, this is dependent upon the port of entry you ship to in the USA. Certain ports have too many FDA import staffers and some too few. If you ship to New York, your products will probably never be stopped. Los Angeles would probably be an "easy" port as well. Unformatunely, in San Francisco your shipment would likely be stopped (i.e. maybe 75%), but because the District has adequate staff, the process should go quickly.
For many years, the FDA-PICSC (Pacific Import Community Steering Commitee) made up of import industry and FDA representatives from San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle have compalined and worked to get the FDA to correct this mis-allocation of resources. Unfortuanately, we have probably not succeeded. I say probably, because 3 years ago the FDA stopped placing at its website (www.fda.gov) information on shipments "Detained"- either for FDA or private lab analysis) and since then has only mare aavailable information on shipments "Refused Entry". It is now impossible to monitor what FDA is doing. Further, the Agency seems to be becoming more secret and more adversarial with industry, though with reduced staffing not doing as much.
I would suggest you "port shop" and your problems will probably be solved.
Otherwise, I agree with all the advice/comments of Mr. William Cole.
With best wishes.
David A. Eisenberg
Chairman
Anresco,Inc. (commercial lab- website: www.anresco.com) and Chairman San Francisco Section of FDA-PICSC
-----Original Message-----
From: sjaganathan@sanford.co.nz
To: seafood@ucdavis.edu
Sent: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 9:02 PM
Subject: Frequent hold ups by US FDA
Hello List members
One of our customer in USA is facing the inconvenience of hold up of his containers more frequently than normal. Here is the excerpt from his mail:
Quote:
Our import have been frequently getting placed on hold even though we have been importing them regularly for over a decade.
The first case for this year had been in February and then released.
We then had following six shipments placed on hold in less than six month despite the review, collection, and release of the previous first container:
It's our understanding that a shipment from the same shipper and containing the same product as a container that was collected/released within the last 6 months should be exempt from re-occurring holds.
Our company, as well as our customers and vendors, have been greatly hindered by these recent holds. We would really like to understand why this is happening.
Moreover, we would also like to know how we can work and cooperate better with the FDA in order to avoid these situations in the future.
- Unquote
We would really appreciate your feedback and comments if you had similar experience on dealing with such problems.
Thanks & regards
Sridhar Jaganathan
Food Safety Coordinator
Sanford Limited
VPN: 9330
DDI (09) 357 3330
Mob. 0210 575 134
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