While on Wednesday, January 22, 2025 the FDA was ordered to leave the AAFCO meeting, apparently for some field supervisors in the FDA, inspections are considered “business as usual” and inspections are being scheduled.
.
Therefore, on Thursday, January 23, 2025, certain members of Next Generation Pet Food Manufacturers Association were contacted by their local FDA inspector and told to expect a “routine“ inspection on Monday.
.
Because the inspection is dubbed “routine”, even though these manufacturers have been inspected copious times over the last several years, apparently the FDAs behavior is justified and believed to be sanctioned, even though on Tuesday, January 22, 2025, the newly inaugurated President of the United States ordered multiple health agencies to cease activities. See the following for more context:
.
.
Or
.
.
How can FDA inspectors inspect if they are unable to communicate?
.
How can they conduct an inspection if they are unable to issue guidance?
.
Is the FDA field office in charge of these “routine“ inspections rogue, perhaps testing limits of the President’s orders?
.
As is typical with most “routine“ FDA inspections over the last couple of years, this inspection is initially scheduled for two days. Previously, inspectors were sent back into the field after obtaining further guidance from their supervisor to return to the facility and conduct more inspections. Not only is this inefficient for the manufacturer as well as the FDA inspectors, it’s very expensive. (In several cases, these so-called “routine” inspections endured for months.) It creates business shut down for the manufacturer. And it certainly increases cost to the FDA and therefore those who fund the FDA.
.
Would it not be more logical that if the FDA is going to do an inspection, that the supervisor in charge of the inspection actually perform the inspection so that the field agent is not sent back a multitude of times like an untrained lackey?
.
If the field inspector is not fully trained, then the supervisor just needs to participate. Everybody would save a lot of time and money.
.
And perhaps if this overzealous (or maybe the person is just bored because the President told the FDA to stand down) area supervisor waited until he or she was given authority after February 1 as the President has mandated, (s)he’d be less likely to get in trouble this week.
.
Bottom line:
.
On Friday, January 17, under the previous administration, the FDA issued guidance, requiring any raw pet food manufacturer to reevaluate their food safety procedures to account for HPAI/H5N1 bird flu. That policy is still in place. (https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/cvm-updates/cat-and-dog-food-manufacturers-required-consider-h5n1-food-safety-plans?)
Please be sure you have updated your policy.
.
Are inspections fair game during this transition period? Apparently one area supervisor thinks so.
