Food-Safety Agencies Mince Their Meats

The FDA-USDA working group, meanwhile, has dealt with more pressing matters: It concluded, for instance, that maybe the responsibility for all pizzas should be shipped over to the FDA.

And the bagel dog -- which, for the uninitiated, is a cooked hot dog wrapped in baked bagel dough -- might get a new home.

Even though the FSIS has oversight for corn dogs and sausage turnovers, it decreed in 1979 that a bagel dog was not a "dog," or a meat product because it was a closed-face sandwich. That means the bagel dog has belonged to the FDA. But making it part of the Agriculture Department's regulatory repertoire is under consideration because, surprise, it is primarily a meat product.

FSIS, the meat and poultry regulator (with egg products thrown in) is endowed with several thousand inspectors who are on plant premises daily inspecting animal carcasses.

As Michael R . Taylor , former FSIS administrator, put it: "The Agriculture Department looks at every one of 7 billion chickens for two seconds per chicken," which makes it proficient at sighting defective carcasses, but maybe not salmonella.

The FDA, which covers everything else (including eggs with shells on), doesn't have the same manpower as the UDSA, so its inspections are less frequent. About 10 more agencies have some food-safety responsibility under some 35 statutes. For example, the Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service inspects fish.

Stuart M . Pape , former associate chief counsel for food at the FDA and now an attorney at Patton Boggs LLP , said creating a new agency would be overkill if it were only to address jurisdictional issues. And, he said, there isn't much of a case for creating one to address public health and security issues.

"I don't know if anyone would support the Department of Homeland Security as the model," said Pape, referring to the several agencies crammed into one to address security concerns. "You create many more problems than the ones you are trying to solve."

That's why the Dec. 15 meeting, officials of both agencies said, is not the first course, or even the appetizer, to serving up a consolidated food-safety agency.

"This has nothing to do with a single-agency approach," said Jeffrey E. Shuren , FDA assistant commissioner for policy. "We think food-safety oversight works very well in this country."