CFSAN Constituent Update - New Food Related Emergency Exercise

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition - Constituent Update
http://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/ConstituentUpdates/default.htm

FDA Makes Available New Food Related Emergency Exercise

July 17, 2015

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is making available a new food related emergency exercise to help public health and other officials understand and coordinate their roles and responsibilities, and prepare for a food-related emergency.

The new exercise, titled “Mass Mayhem,” involves an outbreak of foodborne illness at a large public venue. It is the latest module to be added to the FDA’s Food Related Emergency Exercise Bundle (FREE-B).

The FDA developed the FREE-B scenarios in cooperation with various federal and state partners. These table-top exercises feature acts of intentional food contamination as well as similar, unintentional events. They are designed to aid government regulatory and public health agencies in evaluating existing food emergency response plans, protocols, and procedures, or to help in the development of new or revised efforts.

Various emergency response personnel can benefit from the exercises, including government regulatory and public health officials, first responders, emergency managers, and law enforcement, as well as their counterparts in the private sector.

The FDA plans to complete two additional food related emergency exercises: “Wat’er You Thinking” and “Foul Fodder,” which will cover possible contamination of a municipal water supply and contamination of food and/or animal feed, respectively. The agency expects to make these additional exercises available in coming months.

For more information, visit FDA Food Defense at http://www.FDA.gov/FoodDefense.