The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) should be opening its new China office later in 2008. In the past couple years, as posted here at MassTortDefense, multiple imports from China have been at the center of safety concerns. Earlier this year, heparin allegedly contaminated with a counterfeit ingredient was blamed by some plainitff attorneys for some patient deaths; FDA has issued recalls of several foods imported from China that may have apparently been tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which has been added to dairy products and resulted in hospitalization of thousands of children in China.

FDA staff posted at the China office will inspect facilities, provide guidance on U.S. quality standards, and later train local experts to conduct inspections on behalf of the FDA. The FDA will eventually open offices in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, for a total of eight planned FDA staffers. The agency hopes a greater on the ground presence in China will help prevent unsafe imports, and the opening of a Beijing, China office later this year is just the first step in the FDA’s plan to expand its presence overseas. Over the next year, the agency plans to place as many as 60 food and drug regulators in offices worldwide, focusing on India, Latin America and the Middle East. The plan for permanent outposts marks a break from the agency’s current practice of sending inspectors abroad on individual assignments.

Part of an updated import inspection plan may be to allow voluntary inspection, where manufacturers would pay third-party inspectors to verify that their plants meet FDA standards, although past attempts at a voluntary inspections system haven’t been well received by some overseas manufacturers. Democrats in the House of Representatives, offering yet another alternative, have proposed a program that would require companies to pay mandatory user fees to help finance additional FDA inspections.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Levitt is scheduled to travel to China next month to meet with health officials there to review joint efforts to ensure the safety of food and medical imports. The Consumer Product Safety Commission also worked to get people stationed in China. Under the current plan, the CPSC staffers who will be sent there eventually are not full inspectors. Their purpose will be to provide technical assistance to Chinese manufacturers and regulators.