The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is a nonprofit group in Washington DC, which is intended to protect consumers and the environment from the impact of harmful food production technology. Now, the center claims to reach a settlement with USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and FDA is required to turn a proposed rule for notification procedure preparation to a final rule. Through this procedure, any person can report the particular purpose of certain substance as “generally recognized as safe“ (GRAS) to FDA. Since 1998, FDA has begun to accept GRAS notification, but no final rule has been issued. In February 2014, CFS sued FDA that it didn’t follow the federal regulation procedure prior to implementing GRAS procedure. If the court approves the settlement, FDA will agree to issue GRAS final rule before August 2016.

CFS points out that if FDA fails to complete relevant work in August 2016, it will ask the court to enforce FDA to perform its commitments and publish the rules. CFS also expresses that, once the rule is finalized, FDA “will open the whole GRAS system to accept necessary review,” so that make FDA “be responsible to prepare GRAS system and fully protect the public from harmful food additive hazard.” CFS also expresses that currently the manufacturer notifies that its substance is GRAS to FDA is only to submit “GRAS exemption declaration.” FDA usually doesn’t confirm whether additive is considered safe, which depends on the manufacturer’s affirmation about the safety of its products.