FDA looking abroad to boost food, drug safety

really ! Well it is about Damn time ! 

TOKYO (AP) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has expanded
offices around the world and heightened contacts with counterpart
agencies in order to improve product safety for Americans at home, a
senior agency official said Wednesday.

Globalization has
transformed the food supply as well as the manufacturing process of
drugs and cosmetics, said Dr. Murray Lumpkin, the FDA's deputy
commissioner in charge of international programs.

"What we now
recognize ... is that in order for us to do a better job at home, we
have to do a better job with our counterpart agencies around the
world," he told reporters at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

Over the last several months, the FDA has established its first overseas posts in China, India, Latin America and Europe.

"It
shows our agency evolving from a very domestically focused agency
historically to one now that realizes that it does have a place in a
much more complex regulatory world," said Lumpkin, in Tokyo for an
annual meeting with Japanese officials.