KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Monday, September 22, 2008

Food Safety in the 21st Century: Testing Defined By Intelligence

Jørgen Schlundt, D.V.M, Ph.D.
Director, Department of Food Safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne Diseases World Health Organization

Foodborne disease is the cause of major disease burdens in all countries. Globally, diarrhoeal diseases caused by contaminated food or water, kill an estimated 1.8 million children annually. Even in developed countries up to one third of the population gets sick from food every year. There is a very significant disease burden caused by chemical substances in food. Prevention of foodborne disease should focus on the full food production chain and recognize efficient prevention might be at the farm or the retail level. Realistic targets for risk reduction can and should be set for all food safety problems at national and international levels.

There are hazards in food which cause no human health risk. Therefore detection of a hazard in food does not necessarily indicate a food safety risk. Examples include threshold chemicals in concentrations below the acceptable intake or bacteria, such as staphylococci, in concentrations below which toxin formation causes health effects. Such examples may represent hazards but at the given concentrations human health is maintained, do not represent a human health risk.

Food safety risk analysis is a process consisting of three components: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. According to this guidance, which is accepted by Codex, risk assessment is a scientifically based process estimating risk using quantitative or qualitative expressions and including indications of the attendant uncertainties.

Risk assessment needs to be based on relevant data is usually linked to laboratory results related to chemical or microbiological detection. Contrary to popular belief, laboratory results obtained to control food safety do not constitute efficient preventive action. Many food safety systems continue to throw enormous amounts of money at testing systems that don't find the problem. New testing and typing systems need to be employed to support risk assessment and epidemiological work to attribute disease burden to relevant food items. This result is a science-based way forward, only possible with a significant update of laboratory testing regimes.

ABOUT DR. SCHLUNDT

Jørgen Schlundt has primarily worked in the area of health effects related to microorganisms and chemical substances in food and in the environment, including effects assessment related to biotechnology products. Dr. Schlundt has worked at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Veterinary and Food Agency of Denmark, the Veterinary Research Laboratory in Zimbabwe, and at the World Health Organization headquarters in Switzerland. His main research areas have been in bacteriological and epidemiological aspects of Salmonella infection; survival of zoonotic pathogens in the environment; the intestinal microbial colonisation process; test methodology for assessment of genetically modified microorganisms, and in microbiological and chemical risk assessment.

In recent years, Dr. Schlundt has primarily participated in national and international activities aimed at an optimization of the present Food Safety systems. This work has been primarily focused toward a more thorough understanding of the importance of co-ordination of preventative measures in the different stages of the food production chain, and at the same time accepting the necessity to integrate scientifically the data pool from the food and production side with the human data available. In order to achieve this, a focused and transparent approach based on the development of risk analysis principles, including the use of scientifically based risk assessment as the basis of management decisions has been promoted. Additional work has focused towards promoting linkages and transfer of knowledge and experience between all national food safety authorities.