Last year's FDA reform bill replaced the old pre-market approval process with pre-market notification (PMN), under which FDA has 120 days to require a full review of a new packaging material or else it may proceed to market. Meanwhile, House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees with jurisdiction over FDA's budget have held hearings on the agency's FY '99 budget and are working out the final figures. The Society for the Plastics Industry has been working with the subcommittees to ensure the $1.5 million authorized in the FDA reform bill to implement the new PMN program is actually appropriated. The agency said it would need that much to do the work. The law also authorized $3 million for FY 2000 and FY 2001 for the PMN program. "So far, so good," said Lew Freeman, SPI's vice president of government affairs, noting Republicans and Democrats in Congress have agreed to move the appropriations bills along and not "play politics." Freeman cautioned, however, the appropriation must get through the subcommittees, the full committees and a floor vote on the entire budget before food packaging is in the clear.
Pre-market notification
FDA is beginning the process of writing regulations for a pre-market notification program for new food packaging materials, due to be in place by April, 1999.
Apr 30, 1998
Machinery Basics
Conveying Innovations Report
Editors report on distinguishing characteristics that define each new product and collected video demonstrating the equipment or materials as displayed at the show. This topical report, winnowed from nearly 300 PACK EXPO collective booth visits, represents a categorized, organized account of individual items that were selected based on whether they were deemed to be both new, and truly innovative, based on decades of combined editorial experience in experiencing and evaluating PACK EXPO products.
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