Dr. David Acheson

Photo of Dr. David Acheson

David W.K. Acheson, M.D., F.R.C.P, is a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Associate Commissioner for Foods, which gave him an agency-wide leadership role for all food and feed issues, including health promotion and nutrition. From August 2009 until October 2013, Dr. Acheson was Managing Director for Food and Import Safety at Leavitt Partners LLC, a consulting firm with offices in Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C. He is currently president and CEO of The Acheson Group, an independent spinoff of Leavitt Partners Global Food Safety Solutions.

Firm/Organization: Marler Clark LLP, PS
Blogs: Food Safety News

Latest Articles

In an industry traditionally anxious to be self policing and oppose regulation, the tide has turned. The first evidence of this was in 2006 after the large E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to spinach, when the produce industry was seriously requesting that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration develop regulations around fresh produce. Since then, we have seen repeated outbreaks and recalls in which whole commodities have suffered (such as peanuts, pistachios, tomatoes, cantaloupes and…
After nearly being chopped from existence, the USDA’s Microbiological Data Program (MDP) has been saved for the remainder of 2012. However its future existence is questionable. MDP is a national foodborne pathogen monitoring program implemented in 2001. Through cooperation with State agriculture departments and other federal agencies, MDP manages the collection, analysis, data entry and reporting of foodborne pathogens on selected agricultural commodities at the retail level. At issue for MDP are its operation and…
Everyone with even a cursory interest in FSMA continues to ask, “So when are the four key proposed rules (Produce Safety Standards, Preventive Controls for Human Food, Preventive Controls for Animal Food, and Foreign Supplier Verification Program) going to be published?”  I have to confess right up front that I don’t have any better idea of the right answer to that question than you do. However, despite the lack of clarity on release dates, there…