The Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health this week unveiled a Web site for reporting food safety issues.
The site, dubbed the Safety Reporting Portal, currently lets the food industry report safety problems related to food -- including animal feed -- and animal drugs, according to the FDA.
In another role, the portal can be used to report on problems associated with human gene transfer trials, FDA said.
The portal includes four reporting features: A reportable food industry feature collects reports from industry and public health officials regarding food problems that could harm or cause the death of humans or animals. A pets feature will allow owners and veterinarians to report issues with pet food, while an animal drugs component will let drug manufacturers report adverse drug events.
A fourth feature, clinical trials, will let biomedical researchers report adverse events connected to human gene transfer clinical trials.
Future plans call for the portal to include other types of clinical trials and product safety reports. The objective is to provide a reporting mechanism for multiple agencies.
FDA called the portal the "first step toward a common electronic reporting system that will offer one-stop shopping, allowing an individual to file a single report to multiple agencies that may have an interest in the event."
