Examining Pathogen-Based Import Refusals: Trends and Analysis From 2002 to 2019

Identifying adulterants in imported foods and refusing contaminated shipments help minimize the risk of foodborne illness from foreign products and are essential to keep U.S. consumers safe. This report uses import refusal data from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2002 to 2019 to explore import refusals based on contamination with pathogens and toxins. The report examines trends in total, annually, by industry, and by country. The analysis helps identify which pathogen/toxin is the most common in refused imports, which industries are the most frequently refused in total and by pathogen/toxin type, which countries are the most frequently refused in total and by pathogen/toxin type, and what changes occurred over time. From 2002 to 2019, Salmonella violations accounted for nearly 79.8 percent of all pathogen/toxin violations, followed by Listeria at 11 percent. By food industry group, most pathogen/toxin violations occurred in fishery and seafood products (44.1 percent), followed by spices, flavors, and salts (26.3 percent). Shipments from India, Mexico, and Vietnam accounted for 22.9 percent, 14.9 percent, and 8.6 percent of import refusals due to pathogen/toxin violations, respectively. This report has a limited understanding of which factors affect the refusals because the dataset does not have the volume of shipments inspected, and the FDA inspected only a small percent of the shipment, not randomly, based on the previous history.