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Recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been bearing down on imported processed foods for apparent violations of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act as amended by the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996
(FQPA). Under the FQPA, Congress seemed to intend to eliminate "flow through" pesticide chemical residue tolerances for processed foods resulting in an increase in FDA refusals of imported juice concentrates,
dehydrated vegetables and dried foods that are not intended to be consumed "as is." FDA has been analyzing and judging processed foods for pesticide chemical residue levels and finding them to exceed Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) tolerance levels. After finding such results, FDA has been placing the food processor on Import Alert 99-08, guaranteeing that all future entries from that processor will be detained automatically
and refused -- because of the concentration of pesticide residues when the food is analyzed and judged on the "as is" basis rather than the "ready-to-eat" basis.
Based upon our intervention on behalf of U.S. importers and some foreign processors, EPA issued a correcting (house-cleaning) final regulation on June 8, 2005 that virtually eliminated the problem. Now foreign processors
already listed on FDA's Import Alert 99-08 can petition the agency for removal based upon the EPA regulation.
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