As expected, President Bush signed the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 into law yesterday, Sept. 27. It includes a mandate for the establishment of pet food safety standards and the creation of an early warning system that identifies pet food contamination.

The Secretary of Heath and Human Services, in conjunction with the pet industry and veterinarians, is allotted a two-year timetable to come up with the pet food standards and one year to put the pet food recall alert system into place.

In addition, the law tasks the FDA with posting pet food recall information “in a single location … that is easily accessed and understood by the public.”

The pet-related amendment to the earlier legislation was prompted by the outcry related to the massive pet food recall this spring. As the recalls multiplied each week, consumers and legislators complained that reliable information was hard to come by.

The bill (H.R. 3580) had easily passed by a vote of 405 to 7 in the House on Sept. 19 and unanimously in the Senate on Sept. 20.

Posted September 28, 2007