FDA Webinar: Animal Health & Safety

 The FDA is holding a Animal Health and Safety webinar Tuesday December 8 between 3-3:30 ET.  Here’s the announcement:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will host a webinar for animal health and safety bloggers Tuesday, December 8, from 3:00 to 3:30 pm ET.  The featured speakers, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Principal Deputy Commissioner of the FDA, and Dr. Bernadette Dunham, Director of FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, will focus on the importance of animal health and safety for both animals and pet owners. After the presentations, there will be an opportunity to ask questions or offer feedback.

If you are interested in attending, please send an email to CVMHomeP@cvm.fda.gov. You can also email questions to this address before the webinar.

Follow or join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #FDApet.

To join:
The phone number, pass code, and Web address for the webinar will be posted here by 5 pm ET 12/07/09. If you RSVP to the CVMHomeP@cvm.fda.gov, then we will email you the webinar access information.

This webinar is open to the first 100 attendees who sign in to the meeting URL, and the phone portion is currently only available for participants in the U.S.  We apologize for any inconvenience.

The safety widget mentioned came in a similar announcement, but included this paragraph:

One of the FDA’s priorities is to promote animal health and safety information. Toward that end, FDA is developing an Animal Health and Safety widget to make it easier for you to receive and share animal health information. The widget is a Web application that contains FDA animal health and safety news alerts and tips. It displays this content on any blog or Web page. The content requires no manual updates because it is automatically updated by the FDA.

Well, I gotta ask: How will this change the reporting lag from food companies to the FDA on their “voluntary” recalls, and then from the FDA to the public. Wasn’t it just weeks ago that we had a two month lag in reporting? And yet another on a cat food recall? Maybe we’ll get some answers on Tuesday.