The Food and Drug Administration has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for approval an interim final rule entitled: "Prior Notice of Imported Food." The need for this rule is based on a statutory deadline.

On March 30-31, 2011, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) convened a meeting of the Food Advisory Committee to consider available relevant data on the possible association between consumption of synthetic color additives in food and hyperactivity in children. Among other things, FDA's summary of the meeting states that 57% of the members of the Committee voted against additional labeling requirements for foods that contain certified color additives.

On April 15, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration posted revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:

On April 13, 2011, the Consumer Product Safety Commission unanimously approved a final rule that will establish a new mandatory safety standard for toddler beds. CPSC previously stated that the final rule is very similar to its April 2010 proposed rule.

In testimony before Congress on April 13, 2011, the FDA's Director for Medical Devices, Dr. William Maisel, discussed the agency's efforts to reform the medical device programs, including the FDA's 510(k) action plan for these products, its Medical Device Innovation Initiative, post market surveillance activities, adverse event reporting, and device recall improvements, among other activities.

On April 12-14, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration posted revised versions of the following Import Alerts on the detention without physical examination of:

On April 12, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration updated its Import Alert (IA # 99-33) on detention without physical examination of certain milk, milk products, fruit, vegetables, and baby formula from Japan due to radionuclide contamination. The updated Import Alert expands the area of concern to six (from four) Japanese prefectures and updates the product assignment codes (PAC) for Japan activities.

On April 12, 2011, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that My Michelle has voluntarily recalled about 90,000 girls tops and dresses with attached jewelry and decorative trim that contains high levels of lead. The apparel is sized small to extra large and 7 to 16, and was manufactured in Vietnam.

The Food and Drug Administration is announcing that a proposed collection of information has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for review and approval, "Survey on Consumers’ Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Food Recalls." Comments are due by May 16, 2011.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a proposed rule to amend certain of its general regulations to include tobacco products, where appropriate, in light of FDA's authority to regulate these products under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Among other things, the proposed rule would affect tobacco product labeling and require certain recordkeeping for exports of tobacco products.