Food Drugs Administration

"FDA" redirects here. For other uses, see FDA (disambiguation).
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA or USFDA) is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, dietarysupplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), veterinary products, and cosmetics.
The FDA also enforces other laws, notably Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act and associated regulations, many of which are not directly related to food ordrugs. These include sanitation requirements on interstate travel and control of disease on products ranging from certain household pets to sperm donation for assisted reproduction.
The FDA is led by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The 21st and currentCommissioner is Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg. She has served as Commissioner since February 2009.
The FDA has its headquarters at White Oak, Maryland.[3]The agency also has 223 field offices and 13 laboratories located throughout the 50 states, the United States Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.[4] In 2008, the FDA started opening offices in foreign countries, including China, India, Costa Rica, Chile,Belgium, and the United Kingdom

In recent years, the agency began undertaking a large-scale effort to consolidate its operations in the Washington Metropolitan Area from its main headquarters in Rockville and several fragmented office buildings in the vicinity to the former site of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in the White Oak area of Silver Spring, Maryland.[6][3] When the FDA arrived, the sitewas renamed from the White Oak Naval Surface Warfare Center to the Federal Research Center at White Oak. The first building, the Life Sciences Laboratory, was dedicated and opened with 104 employees on the campus in December 2003. The project is slated to be completed by 2013.
While most of the Centers are located around the Washington, D.C., area as part of the Headquarters divisions, two offices- the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) and the Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) - are primarily field offices with a workforce spread across the country.
The Office of Regulatory Affairs is considered the "eyes and ears" of the agency, conducting the vast majority of the FDA's work in the field. Consumer Safety Officers, more commonly called Investigators, are the individuals whoinspect production and warehousing facilities, investigate complaints, illnesses, or outbreaks, and review documentation in the case of medical devices, drugs, biological products, and other items where it may be difficult to conduct a physical examination or take a physical sample of the product. The Office of Regulatory Affairs is divided into five regions, which are further divided into 13 districts.Districts are based roughly on the geographic divisions of the federal court system. Each district comprises a main district office, and a number of Resident Posts, which are FDA offices located away from the district office to serve a particular geographic area. ORA also includes the Agency's network of laboratories, which analyze any physical samples taken. Though samples are usuallyfood-related, some laboratories are equipped to analyze drugs, cosmetics, and radiation-emitting devices.
The Office of Criminal Investigations was established in 1991 to investigate criminal cases. Unlike ORA Investigators, OCI Special Agents are armed, and are not focused on the technical aspects of the regulated industries. OCI agents pursue and develop cases where criminal actions have occurred, such...