Cynthia Lieberman Interviewed for Plastics Recycling Update Article on FDA LNO Program

Keller and Heckman Partner Cynthia Lieberman was quoted in the Plastics Recycling Update article, "Clarity on future of FDA LNO program yet to emerge." The article focuses on the questionable future for letters of no objection (LNOs) issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) amid extensive federal staffing cuts.

"I think it’s only sort of logical to expect that something that is a voluntary program would be higher up on the programs on the chopping block if they were to see significant resource constraints in terms of their personnel," said Cynthia. “I’m not suggesting in any way that we expect them to, you know, get rid of the program. But I think it is reasonable to expect that you could start seeing delays in the timelines for which those LNOs are evaluated and posted. So that may lead to fewer being posted, just simply because the agency is taking longer to do them because they don’t have as many people on staff reviewing them.”

Partner George Misko was also mentioned in this article, given similar thoughts that he shared on a recent episode of Keller and Heckman's Food & Chemicals Unpacked podcast. "If someone sees an opportunity to reassign man hours, they may do that," he said.

Although the LNO process seems to be continuing at this time, because of its status as a voluntary program, "there’s nothing that would prevent a company from making a compliance determination of the recycled material for use in their intended packaging applications,” noted Cynthia. “FDA doesn’t necessarily have any sort of stronghold on this."

Cynthia concluded that "we’re all sort of taking a bit of a wait-and-see approach."

Plastics Recycling Update is a Resource Recycling, Inc. publication. To read the full article, please click here.