(FDA: Washington) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced two new regulations that will help ensure the safety and security of foods in the United States. The rules are the first to be issued by the FDA under the new authorities granted the agency by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), signed into law by President Obama in January 2011. Both rules will take effect July 3, 2011.

The first rule strengthens FDA’s ability to prevent potentially unsafe food from entering commerce. It allows the FDA to administratively detain food that the agency believes has been produced under insanitary or unsafe conditions. Previously, the FDA’s ability to detain food products applied only when the agency had credible evidence that a food product was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

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