If your warehouse handles food, it's time to start to paying attention to the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. One provision of the Act, which was passed last June, requires domestic and foreign facilities that warehouse or handle food for human or animal consumption in the U.S. to register their facility with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by December 12, 2003.

Facility owners must provide information about the location of their facilities, the parent company, emergency contact information, and information about the products handled in the facility. The FDA, in turn, will issue each facility a unique registration number.

The Act, coupled with new regulations proposed by the FDA, would impact more than 400,000 domestic and foreign facilities, according to FDA commissioner Dr. Mark B. McClellan. "Our ability to efficiently and effectively help protect the nation's food supply is a critical part in our agency's counter terrorism mission," McClellan said.

The first step toward registration took place in late January 2003, when the FDA published proposed regulations to implement the provisions of the act.

That was followed by a 60-day public comment period. Final regulations will be published on October 12. Meanwhile, the agency has also contracted to build the electronic registration system, which should be operational by October 12. Then facility owners will have 60 days to register via the Internet or by mail.

All facilities must register by the Dec. 12 deadline, even if the FDA has not issued final regulations. Failure to register can result in a civil or criminal action in federal court, and detention at the port of entry of any food from unregistered foreign facilities.

For more information, visit: http://www.fda.gov/oc/ bioterrorism/bioact.html.