States to get access to FDA recalls database

Health and agriculture departments in all 50 states will have rapid access to FDA's Recall Enterprise System (RES) by Sept. 30, 2009, to allow them a potentially greater role in product recall actions, the agency says. RES is a database that includes the full array of communications between the agency's district offices and headquarters concerning product recalls. During an August meeting in St. Louis, FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach promised state officials that they would be able to use RES by the end of fiscal year 2009, FDA Senior Recall Coordinator Melvin Szymanski said during a Sept. 25 session of the Center for Business Intelligence's Bio/Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Product Recalls Summit in Vienna, Va. "Certain state [reps] said during the St. Louis meeting that if they have access to [information on a recalled product] in their state, they would want to ... make sure it's no longer on the shelf," Szymanski said, noting that the help from the states could free up FDA resources for use elsewhere