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Risk assessment on food safety.

Reznikova O.S. – Ph. D. (the doctor of philosophy in economics), the manager by faculty of applied mathematics and economic cybernetics, assistant of dean of economics faculty of National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine South Branch «Crimean Agrotechnological University».

The summary The greatest strides in ensuring food safety from production to consumption can be made through a scientific risk-based system that ensures that surveillance, regulatory, and research resources are allocated to maximize effectiveness. That will require identification of the greatest public health needs and greatest opportunities for improvement through prevention, surveillance and risk analysis. The state of knowledge and technology defines what is achievable through the application of current science. Public resources can have the greatest favorable effect on public health if they are allocated in accordance with the combined analysis of risk assessment and technical feasibility.

Key words: assessment, safety programs, protecting the safety, a science-based system of food safety, food safety issues.

Introduction It is widely recognized that eating food entails an inherent risk of illness. The risk of acquiring foodborne illness can vary widely and depends on the type of food and how the food is processed, handled, and prepared. Some foods, such as commercial sterile, retorted canned products, present a very low risk of transmitting foodborne pathogens; others, such as raw oysters, have a well-documented history of disseminating foodborne disease.

Risk assessment determines the probability of illness caused by eating food contaminated with specific foodborne hazards. Critical information needed for risk assessment includes identification of the hazardous agent, data on the prevalence and concentrations of the agent in specific foods, profiles of the consumption of specific foods, and the disease response of people who are exposed to different amounts of the harmful agent. Those data are used in a mathematical calculation to estimate the risk of illness to a specific category of consumers that is caused by a harmful agent in a specific type of food. However, quantitative microbial risk assessment is a new discipline that is in the developmental stages, and refinements are needed before it can be fully implemented [4].

Statement of the task The limited availability of resources to address food safety issues necessitates that priorities among safety programs be set on the basis of risk assessment. That approach to assessing the relative safety of different foods enables regulators to estimate the probability of acquiring illness from eating specific foods and thereby allows them to place the greatest emphasis on foods that have the highest risk of causing human illness. Hence, risk assessment is a science-based approach to addressing food safety issues. It is not, however, to be restrictive; dealing with several small risks may be more effective and less expensive than efforts to eliminate a large but intractable problem [1].

The major shortfall with regard to the use of risk assessment in the current system includes: under the current statutory and budgetary constraints, it is not possible to fully realize the benefits of the valuable and critical tool of risk assessment and its resulting positive impacts on food safety.

Results Protecting the safety of domestically produced food is a daunting challenge, but the country's growing reliance on imported food adds several layers of complexity. It is by no means clear that imported food, as a class, poses greater risks than does domestically produced food. What is clear is that federal officials cannot use the same methods in regulating imported food that they use-or that would make sense-in regulating domestically produced food. Methods that rely on production-site monitoring of compliance with safety standards or universal physical inspection of marketed shipments cannot be directly translated overseas.

In fact, although both agencies have computerized systems to assist in inspection and tracking, there is no way to determine whether the agencies are focusing their attention on the most important health risks. Both agencies target resources to meet the problems of past violations, in which contamination, processing defects, labeling, and quality were at issue.

Current understanding of the magnitude of the problem of foodborne disease and the importance of the relevant hazards is incomplete and in many cases inaccurate. Furthermore, there is a lack of scientific resources and structure to address the gaps and inaccuracies. Effective and adequate monitoring, surveillance, and research to characterize risk are required to improve the allocation of resources and to develop the knowledge and technology needed to manage hazards that pose the greatest risk.

It is also important that any national plan directly address the safety of imported food. Not all agencies responsible for monitoring the safety of imported food are authorized to enter into agreements with the governments of exporting countries in order to reciprocally recognize food safety standards or inspection results. Uniform or harmonized food safety standards or practices should be encouraged, and officials allowed to undertake research, monitoring, surveillance, or inspection activities within other countries. This should permit inspection and monitoring efforts to be allocated in accordance with science based analyses of risk and benefit.

The committee found two major problems with respect to consumer education: in some instances, consumer knowledge is inadequate or erroneous; and even where knowledge is adequate, it often fails to influence behavior. A task force to examine approaches to and resources for consumer education is required.

The cornerstone of a science-based system of food safety is the incorporation of the results of risk analysis into all decisions regarding resource allocation, programmatic priorities, and public education activities. Risk assessment integrates data on exposure to harmful agents and dose-response relationships to estimate the risk of developing illness from eating specific foods. The growing acceptance of the principles of risk assessment has also led to its use beyond regulatory standard-setting. It is now possible to use comparisons of risk to inform and set priorities for risk management. Risk-based priorities enable resources to be so allocated as to protect public health and to attack the worst problems and/or those most amenable to change first.

To move from a reactive mode of research based on responses to food safety crises to a preventive mode in which newly emerging hazards are identified, or, if possible, prevented, and potential methods for containment evaluated, the federal agency(ies) responsible for food safety regulation will need authority to direct the allocation of funds for food safety research. Intramural and extramural research priorities should be focused on both short and long-term hazard prevention and on advancing understanding of foodborne pathogens and other food-related hazards; research results should then be integrated into the standard-setting and regulatory program. Selection of research priorities should be based on identification of the greatest potential areas for foodborne risks and assessment of the likely contributions of research findings to the prevention of illness and the improvement of regulatory performance.

In addition to research targeted at immediate regulatory needs, there should continue to be a federally supported, long-term, strategic research program. It should have both applied and basic components and be targeted at the needs of producers, processors, consumers, and nonregulatory and regulatory scientists.

Conclusions The greatest strides in ensuring food safety from production to consumption can be made through a scientific risk-based system that ensures that surveillance, regulatory, and research resources are allocated to maximize effectiveness. This will require identification of the greatest public health needs through surveillance and risk analysis. The state of knowledge and technology defines what is achievable through the application of current science. Public resources can have the greatest favorable effect on public health if they are allocated in accordance with the combined analysis of risk assessment and technical feasibility. It is important to recognize that limiting allocation of resources to only those areas where high priority hazards exist can create another problem: other hazards with somewhat lower priority but with a much greater probability of reduction or elimination will not be addressed due to limited resources. Thus, both the relative risks and benefits must be considered in allocating resources [2].

Recommendation:

1. Base the food safety system on science.

2. Congress should change federal statutes so that inspection, enforcement, and research efforts can be based on scientifically supportable assessments of risks to public health.

3. Congress and the administration should require development of a comprehensive national food safety plan. Funds appropriated for food safety programs (including research and education programs) should be allocated in accordance with science-based assessments of risk and potential benefit.

The National Food Safety Plan should:

- include a unified, science-based food safety mission;

- integrate federal, state, and local food safety activities;

- allocate funding for food safety in accordance with science-based assessments of risk and potential benefit;

- provide adequate and identifiable support for research and surveillance to:

- monitor changes in risk or potential hazards brought on by changes in the food supply or consumption patterns, and

- improve the capability to predict and avoid new hazards;

- increase monitoring and surveillance efforts to improve knowledge of the incidence, seriousness, and cause-effect relationships of foodborne disease and related hazards;

- address the additional and distinctive efforts required to ensure the safety of imported foods;

- recognize and provide support for the burdens imposed on state and local authorities that have primary front-line responsibility for the regulation of food service establishments;

- address consumers' behaviors related to safe food-handling practices.

4. To implement a science-based system, Government should establish, by statute, a unified and central framework for managing federal food safety programs, one that is headed by a single official and which has the responsibility and control of resources for all federal food safety activities, including outbreak management, standard-setting, inspection, monitoring, surveillance, risk assessment, enforcement, research, and education.

5. To implement a science-based system, Government should establish, by statute, a unified and central framework for managing federal food safety programs, one that is headed by a single official and which has the responsibility and control of resources for all federal food safety activities, including outbreak management, standard-setting, inspection, monitoring, surveillance, risk assessment, enforcement, research, and education.

The literature

1. Congressional Research Service, Food Safety Issues in the 105th Congress, by Donna U. Vogt, IB98009, March 30, 1998; and Meat and Poultry Inspection Issues, by Jean Rawson, IB 95062, March 1998.

2. Edward L. Korwek, 1997 United States Biotechnology Regulations Handbook, vol. 1, (Washington, D.C.:Food and Drug Law Institute, 1997), 112.

3. Robert A. Robinson, Director, Food and Agriculture Issues, RCED/GAO, "Food Safety: Fundamental Changes Needed to Improve the Nation's Food Safety System," statement for the record before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, 8 October 1997.

4. John C. Bailar III, Carole A. Bisogns Ensuring Safe Food: From Production to Consumption // Committee to Ensure Safe Food from Production to Consumption, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council.–1998–206 p. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6163.html.