The biggest change in the legislation is the requirement that food companies take preventive steps to avoid food comtamination. They will now have to identify the critical points where the food they're handling could become contaminated and then implement procedures to prevent that contamination. Already implemented by other countries, as well as by some food companies, these preventive steps in the United States should make it easier for companies and employees to use tools and procedures to keep America's food safe. "It shifts the paradigm," says Mr. Hubbard, the former FDA associate commissioner. FDA in the past has played cop, tracking down trouble when it arises. The law creates "a new system in which government and food processors work together to keep contamination from ever occurring in the first place."
Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/File
