Consumer Safety

The FDA is headed by the Commissioner of Food and Dmgs. This position is not a Cabiaet-level office but falls within the PubHc Health Service (PHS), a division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The post of FDA Commissioner is subject to HHS pohtical clearance and Senate confirmation, and the Commissioner is ultimately accountable to HHS, Congress, and the President of the United States. The Commissioner has a staff to assist ia poHcy making and several deputy commissioners to oversee operation of ah. the subordinate units. FDA has six regional offices within the country, each responsible for a section of the country, and 21 district offices. Persons with technical background typicahy work ia one of FDA s chemistry laboratories or as investigators or consumer safety officers. 

DTI 1994 The General Product Safety Regulations. London DTI Consumer Safety Unit, HMSO, DTI. 

CPSA is a significant consumer safety law. It is part of U.S. legislative law and augments the common law and case of product liability. Purpose of the law is (1) to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury... 

Assessment and definition of sensitivity are often described for quantitative analysis but are of equal importance for qualitative devices of the dip-stick type that are very popular for farm- or field-based screening assays. Because of the somewhat subjective nature of visually assessed assays, the assay s sensitivity must be validated using a number of observers to determine at what level a test is deemed positive. The number of false positives and false negatives must be carefully determined in order to balance consumer safety and potential economic loss to animal producers. 

Safety concerns include consumer safety and environmental hazards. 

The 1988 Consumer Safety Regulations relate to both upholstered furniture and mattresses(19). 

This principle is adhered to for flame ignition tests for the public area which still requires that the tests are carried out on the upholstery composite although some specifiers are now requiring that all PU foam shall additionally comply with the 1988 Consumer Safety Regulations. 

The principle of the 1988 Consumer Safety Regulations is that all filling materials and covering fabrics shall be ignition resistant against specified flames. An exception is made for specified types of fabric which may be used with a flame retarded interliner. 

The 1988 Consumer Safety Regulations depart from the principle of testing composites because they essentially test individual materials in a standard manner although the composite BS 5852 test is used. Thus flame retarded fabrics and interliners are tested with a specified standard PU foam and polyurethane foams and other fillings are tested with a specified flame retarded polyester fabric. It is understood that this... 

The Consumer Safety Regulations 1988 regulations were recently published for domestic furniture and mattresses. These are a complex series of relatively simple ignition tests designed to restrict the use of easily ignitable fabrics and infill materials. The 1988 regulations replace the earlier regulations of 1980 and 1983. 

Consumer Safety Regulations are based on test procedures which are scientifically unsound and that they contradict the essentials of composites testing and hazard based fire tests, large scale hazard based tests involving the newer types of combustion modified PU foams with suitable fabrics have shown... 

It is a common misconception that opinions and interpretations are only offered by forensic scientists and Public Analysts. Analysts from many areas are required to provide this service, e.g. those dealing with consumer safety, geology/geochemistry, oil exploration and food science, to mention but a few. Some examples are given below. 

Vicki Barwick obtained a first degree in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham. She then joined the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (which became LGC in 1996) as an analyst in the Consumer Safety Group. Vicki was involved with a number of projects to assess the safety of consumer products, including developing test methods for the identification of colourants in cosmetics and the quantitation of phthalate plasticizers in child-care items. 

Another advantage cited for organic electronics is their perceived low environmental impact and high expected consumer safety. This assumption is generally based on the notion that plastics are easily recycled and are considered safe to humans and animals. However, the materials used are often completely new compositions with poorly understood health and safety attributes. The assumption that all plastics are completely safe for humans is inaccurate, as is exemplified by recent concerns about the toxicity of polyvinyl chloride (PVC).39 In contrast, most inorganic nanoparticle materials are already on the consumer market and have extensive historical data on their safety in a variety of applications. Some materials, such as zinc oxide, are even considered reasonably safe for ingestion and therefore are commonly used in food and cosmetics. However, the health effects and interactions of nanoparticles on the human body are still a topic of debate.40... 

Once filed, an NDA undergoes several layers of review (Figure 4.12). A primary review panel generally consists of a chemist, microbiologist, pharmacologist, biostatistician, medical officer and biopharmaceutics scientist. Most hold PhDs in their relevant discipline. The team is organized by a project manager or consumer safety officer (CSO). The CSO initially forwards relevant portions of the NDA to the primary review panel member with the appropriate expertise. 

There has been much debate about several aspects of additives. Their safety has been questioned, often as a result of much-publicised reports of adverse reactions. Indeed the need for additives has been questioned. The chemical nature of additives has also led to debate. Some members of the public in this and probably several other countries firmly believe that additives are a bad thing . This book touches on these topics, but it does not and cannot give definitive answers. Perhaps the shortage of books about this scientific work has contributed to public distrust. But it is not the purpose of this work in some way to re-educate the public. That would be both arrogant and trying to turn back history The purpose of this volume is to demonstrate that there is considerable scientific work to enable the effective protection of consumers safety. 

Kessler, D.A., Panel discussion on herbal dietary supplements. Consumer Safety Symposium on Dietary Supplements and Herbs, New York, March 3,1998. 

Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety, SCCS (2010) Opinion on triclosan (antimicrobial resistance), http //ec.europa.eu/health/scientific committees/consumer safety/docs/sccs o 023.pdf... 

The Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) deals with questions concerning emerging or newly identified risks, and broad, complex, or mulfidisciplinary issues requiring a comprehensive assessment of risks to consumer safety or public health, and related issues not covered by other community risk assessment bodies (EU 2006f). 

Once the NDA has been filed, the sponsor must monitor the progress of the NDA review in order to detect problems or concerns at the earliest possible moment. This monitoring or tracking must be carried out with great sensitivity. If contacts are too frequent or poorly timed they can quickly become an annoyance, which can hamper further communications. The project manager or consumer safety officer is the usual point of contact. If there is difficulty with a particular review, then the reviewer should be contacted (with consideration, obviously, for the reviewer s time). 

WHO (1962). Principles in governing consumer safety in relation to pesticide residues. WHO Tech Rep Ser, 240. 

FDA investigators compare information that clinical investigators provided to sponsors on case report forms with information in source documents such as medical records and lab results, says Carolyn Hommel, a consumer safety officer in DSI. 

JECFA originally met annually, but in recent years began meeting biennially. This program was intended to obtain international agreement on the acceptability and usage levels of food additive chemicals, in order to protect consumer safety and facilitate international trade. 

Unlike the naturally occurring hormones for which human food safety assessment is based on a ratio of their amount consumed in food compared to their amount produced endogenously by the consumer, safety assessment for the synthetic trenbolone acetate and zeranol hormones is based on alternative... 

In order to avoid contradictory drug regulations and to ensure consumer safety, tire European Union has recently initiated elaboration of an amendment... 

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