As promised and on time, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued an agreement on March 7 describing in some detail the division of responsibility between the two agencies over the emerging and much-talked-about category of human food produced using cell culture technology derived from cell lines of USDA-amenable species of meat and poultry. The document contains no real surprises and, as is often the case with such materials, tends to raise as many questions as it answers. Nonetheless, it provides the clearest delineation to date on the particulars of just how the safety, suitability, and marketing of such products is to be overseen by the two agencies.
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