Posted: June 3rd, 2009 - 12:50pm
Source: Link

TOKYO -- The US 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 on Wednesday.
Globalisation 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 recognise ... 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 US 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 Mr Lumpkin, in Tokyo for an annual meeting with Japanese officials.