A US congressional watchdog has added programmes at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to its list of government operations that require special oversight or reform.

To help Congress set its agenda every two years, the Government Accountability Office identifies high-risk programmes that need to be either overhauled or guarded against "waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement". The report, released on 22 January, says that the FDA should, for instance, increase its inspections of foreign drug and medical-device manufacturers. The FDA plans to expand its oversight abroad, and has opened offices in China and India in the past six months.

The report also says that the EPA should speed up its evaluations of chemical risks and have the power to demand more safety information from chemical companies.