Food and Drug Administration: Transportation - Essay Example

"Food and Drug Administration: Transportation" is a wonderful example of a paper on the health system. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, USFDA is the agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It implements control over food and drug quality (Hilts, 2003). FDA is responsible for the health of the population and supervises the safety of food, cigarettes, accessory food substances, drugs, vaccines, medical devices, and veterinary medicines and cosmetics. It also controls the following of certain laws, for example, section 361 of the Public Health Service Act. The head of FDA is offered by the President and confirmed by Senate. It reports to the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. Since February 2009 Dr. Margaret Hamburg is the head of the agency.

The rules the following of which are supervised by the FDA are also related to the transportation of drugs and humans and animal food. The administration demands the transporters of drugs and food to adhere to the special rules in order to minimize the possibility of risk occurrence. According to FDA's associate commissioner for food protection, “Our aim is to look at every component of the system to assess hazards and to take science-based action where appropriate to maximize the safety of our food from farms all the way to consumers' tables. Although contamination of food product during commercial transport is relatively infrequent, the potential harm can be widespread and serious” (FDA sets new safety standards for the transportation of food). The main rules include using operable transport, maintaining the corresponding temperature, and strictly following the rules of loading and unloading (Fain et al, 2013).

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