China's State Food and Drug Administration has published a rule on food safety management and supervision, and is soliciting opinions on the rule from the public.
The rule requires that an emergent reporting system be set up for food safety accidents or potential food safety accidents in regions above county level in China. It says that the time to respond to the report should be no more than six hours, and no party or individual shall conceal, lie, or delay the reporting of food accidents.
The rule states that an accident that involves more than 30 people shall be reported to the local food administration department within six hours, those that involve more than 100 people or cause more than one death and those that occur in schools or during national events should be reported to the local health department and the food and drug administration of a higher level within six hours and also reported to the SFDA in a timely manner.
The rule says that food and drug administrations above the county level are entitled to probe into details of a food service provider when investigating an accident and the latter shall provide related profiles and samples and take some provisional measures including but not limited to isolating the food and materials that may be related to the accident, sealing contaminated tools, and disclosing information about the accident.
The rule requires food service providers to report any food related accidents within two hours to the local supervision departments and to take effective measures to coordinate the investigation of the accidents.
