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August 2, 2006
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and state and local organizations representing food, public health, and agriculture interests has implemented a new food defense initiative, ALERT. ALERT is an acronym that stands for Assure, Look, Employees, Reports and Threat. The initiative provides a uniform and consistent approach and is designed to heighten awareness within the food sector on key food defense issues such as product security and reporting of suspicious behavior. It is generic enough to apply to all aspects of the farm to retail establishment supply chain. The key questions associated with ALERT are:
A: How do you ASSURE that the supplies and ingredients you use are from safe and secure sources?
L: How do you LOOK after the security of the products and ingredients in your facility?
E: What do you know about your EMPLOYEES and people coming in and out of your facility?
R: Could you provide REPORTS about the security of your products while under your control?
T: What do you do and who do you notify if you have a THREAT or issue at your facility, including suspicious behavior?
In addition to FDA, USDA, and CDC, organizations participating in the development of ALERT include: The National Environmental Health Association, National Association of Local Boards of Health, National Association of County and City Health Officers, Association of State Territorial Health Officers, American Feed Control Officials, Association of Public Health Laboratories and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.
Background information regarding the initiative, including information in support of each letter of the ALERT acronym, is available at www.cfsan.fda.gov/alert. In addition, for comprehensive information regarding FDA's Food Defense and Terrorism Program, visit www.cfsan.fda.gov/fooddefense.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has advised consumers to avoid eating raw oysters harvested in the Pacific Northwest after reports that some of the oysters recently harvested from this region were contaminated with Vibrio parahaemolyticus. Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a bacteria that can cause gastrointestinal illness. In a press release issued July 31, 2006, FDA advised that until the threat has passed, consumers should thoroughly cook oysters harvested from the affected region before consumption. Consumers are also advised to thoroughly cook oysters if they are not certain of the oysters' origin, or if they wish to further reduce their risk of infection from bacteria that may be found in raw oysters. The July 31, 2006 press release, in its entirety, is available. (Consumers Advised To Avoid Raw Oysters From the Pacific Northwest).
The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) has recently added additional data to its webpage regarding acrylamide. Acrylamide causes cancer in laboratory animals at high doses, and is therefore a potential human carcinogen. The chemical acrylamide can form in certain carbohydrate-rich foods during high-temperature cooking processes including frying and baking. Since the detection of acrylamide in a variety of fried and oven-baked foods in 2002 by researchers at the Swedish National Food Administration and Stockholm University, CFSAN has initiated a broad range of surveillance and research activities related to acrylamide. The acrylamide levels detected in approximately 400 food samples collected as part of the FDA's Total Diet Study (TDS) Program for FY05 have been added to CFSAN's webpage. Note that there are now acrylamide data for approximately 2500 samples posted on the CFSAN website. CFSAN's "2006 Exposure Assessment for Acrylamide", based on the aforementioned 2500 samples, has also recently been posted on the CFSAN website. The 2006 Exposure Assessment estimated mean intake of acrylamide for U.S. consumers (ages 2 and over) is 0.4 µg/kg-bw/d, the same mean intake of acrylamide for U.S. consumers reported following the 2003 and 2004 exposure assessments.
"Reaching At-Risk Audiences and Today's Other Food Safety Challenges" is the theme for the September 27-29, 2006 Food Safety Education Conference. The conference will be held in Denver, Colorado, with pre-conference workshops scheduled for September 25-26. In addition to FDA, cosponsors include: the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NSF International, a non-profit public health company; NSF/WHO Collaborating Center for Food Safety; and other partners. The conference will be organized around five primary themes:
* Foodborne Illness Surveillance and Epidemiological Insight
* Food Safety Behavioral and Attitudinal Research
* Social Marketing, Educational Interventions, and Program Research
* Role of Foodservice and Food Industries, and
* New Technologies
See "Reaching At-Risk Audiences and Today's Other Food Safety Challenges" for additional information.
