In 2011, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act, the first major overhaul of the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s food safety laws in over 75 years. Among other things, the law authorizes the FDA to issue a mandatory, rather than voluntary, recall of contaminated food. According to the Pew Health Group, the FDA’s corresponding rules have been delayed by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for over eight months. Pew suggests, and the OMB denies, that the delay may be due to election-year politics.
