CPSC Announces Agreement With FDA On Food-Related Articles

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission today announced it has reached an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning the jurisdiction of the two agencies over such food-related articles as pressure cookers, slow-cookers, refrigerators, freezers and home canning equipment.

The agreement was made necessary by an uncertainty concerning which agency had jurisdiction to deal with hazards of food spoilage resulting from home canning lids which fail to seal properly. Under the agreement, the CPSC will have jurisdiction to deal with any such case that poses unreasonable risk of serious illness or injury to consumers.

The basic feature of the agreement is that articles used by consumers for storage or preparation of foods are under the jurisdiction of the CPSC. An exception is when the food becomes contaminated by virtue of a substance migrating from the article itself into the food. In this case the courts have held that the FDA has jurisdiction to eliminate the hazard.

Commenting on the Memorandum, CPSC Chairman S. John Byington said, "I am pleased that this jurisdictional question has been resolved and that the American consumer has not been left unprotected. By clearing up Possible future jurisdictional problems now," noted Byington, "we've made up for the delay in reaching this agreement."

The Commission's technical staff is undertaking an immediate review of problems associated with home canning lid equipment. An interim status report of their findings, is to be available in two weeks.