The Food and Drug Administration has posted a video on current issues in safety and labeling of cosmetics, which covers U.S. laws and regulations affecting cosmetics, its enforcement and monitoring efforts, and its work with international partners on cosmetics.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a CSMS message announcing that the Food and Drug Administration's MARCS/OASIS import system will be down for maintenance on Saturday December 3, 2011, starting at approximately 2:30 a.m., and is not anticipated to be back up until 11:30 a.m. EST. As a result, FDA will be operating under the Prior Notice scenario 2 contingency. During the periods when OASIS/MARCS is down ACS, PNSI and the link between ACS and OASIS will be operational. However, the OASIS downtime will prevent submitters who filed via ABI from receiving prior notice confirmation and would prevent CBP from auto-checking the prior notice confirmation for ABI filers.
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it will host a webinar on November 30, 2011 from 12-2:00 p.m. EST to discuss ENERGY STAR's Most Efficient proposed 2012 recognition criteria with interested parties. RSVP no later than 10:00 a.m. on November 30 to MostEfficient@energystar.gov to receive webinar log-in details.
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it is making available to the public hundreds of studies on chemicals submitted under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that had formerly been treated as confidential business information (CBI). EPA states that releasing the data will expand the public’s access to critical health and safety information on chemicals that are manufactured and processed in the U.S.
On November 29, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The European Union has issued a new regulation on food labeling that is intended to enable consumers to make healthier dietary choices by including new requirements for mandatory food labeling, expanding country of origin labeling to more types of meat, and setting requirements for legible and non-misleading labeling of foods. The regulation also consolidates and streamlines various EU directives and regulations into a single regulation.
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a final rule, effective December 29, 2011, amending provisions of its 2009 Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases final rule in order to correct technical and editorial errors that have been identified since promulgation; include additional information to clarify compliance obligations; correct data reporting elements so they more closely conform to the information used to perform calculations; and make other corrections and amendments. The final rule also allows a limited, one-time six month extension of the 2012 reporting deadline for certain facilities and suppliers.
On November 28, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:
The Food and Drug Administration and the Food Safety and Inspection Service are extending the comment period to January 27, 2012 for their September 15, 2011 request for comments on approaches to reducing sodium consumption in response to an industry association's request for additional time to allow interested persons to submit comments. In the September notice, FDA and FSIS requested comments on research, data, and other information to better inform both agencies about current and emerging practices by the private sector regarding sodium reduction in foods, current consumer understanding of the role of sodium in hypertension and other chronic illnesses, sodium consumption practices, etc. to promote reduction in excess sodium intake.
On November 23, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration posted new and revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of: