October 8, 2002

USDA Education Grant Awarded to Science and Our Food Supply Project

USDA awarded a $530,608 grant to a joint project proposed by the University of Massachusetts in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and FDA. The 3-year grant will promote and enhance food safety education for teachers and youth through an online program using the FDA-NSTA supplementary food science curriculum Science and Our Food Supply as the standard curricula. Science and Our Food Supply is targeted to middle level and high school students. Through hands-on, inquiry-based laboratory experiments and classroom activities and research, students learn about food safety along the farm-to-table continuum and develop an understanding of how to reduce foodborne illness. More than 11,500 copies of the curriculum have been distributed since it was first introduced in October 2001.

The grant includes a research component to determine the baseline attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors of secondary level science teachers, and the research will relate health belief, stage of change, and other factors to the use of food safety education in the classroom. The grant will also cover the development of an online food safety education course geared to the learning needs of secondary level science teachers and their students. As a result of the course, teachers will demonstrate an increase in knowledge and application of food safety, as documented by increased knowledge and behavior scores from pretest to posttest and apply food safety activities in the classroom, as documented in course activities and evaluation. Students will increase food safety knowledge and improve food handling behaviors at home, as documented by increased knowledge and behavior scores from pretest to posttest and increased use of food safety activities with families at home, as determined by questionnaires administered to children by teachers.

Teachers who would like to order a free copy of Science and Our Food Supply can do so via the web at http://www.nsta.org/fda.

CFSAN Holds Public Meeting on Acrylamide in Foods

On September 30. 2002, a public meeting was held to discuss FDA's activities related to acrylamide in food. The purpose of the meeting was to present FDA's action plan on acrylamide, to present FDA's exploratory survey data in U.S. foods, and to obtain and solicit public comments on the action plan. The keynote speaker for the meeting was Dr. Lester Crawford, Deputy FDA Commissioner. Other speakers included Dr. Bernard Schwetz, Senior Science Advisor; Dr. David Lineback, Director, JIFSAN; Dr. Thomas Sinks, Associate Director for Science, National Center for Environmental Health, CDC; and Dr. Michael Jacobson, Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest. The CFSAN speakers were Dr. Terry Troxell, Dr. Richard Canady, and Dr. Lauren Posnick. The total number of participants, including FDA and other government agencies, was 124.

FDA's goal is to reduce the risk of acrylamide in foods to the greatest extent feasible. FDA plans to continue to study acrylamide in a wide variety of foods, including breads, cereals, and snack foods in an effort to understand the scope and impact of this chemical in the U.S. food supply. FDA will investigate how acrylamide is formed in food, seek to identify ways to reduce acrylamide levels, and study the human health risk of consuming acrylamide in foods. FDA is collaborating with other federal public health agencies, international partners, academia, consumers, and the food-processing industry to coordinate efforts related to acrylamide in foods.

Over the next 6 months, we expect to gather further information about acrylamide in food. We will take the collected information for consideration first to a Contaminant and Natural Toxicants Subcommittee meeting in December 2002, and then to a full Foods Advisory Committee meeting in March 2003. The Advisory Committee will be asked to review the Action Plan and the available data on acrylamide in foods.

As new information becomes available, FDA will share its findings with consumers and the food industry and develop education materials on how to reduce risk. The Action Plan is on the FDA Web site, http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/acryplan.html.

CFSAN's Food Safety Team in Europe

A series of FDA-sponsored food safety outreach meetings reached nearly 400 key leaders of government, industry, and consumer groups in Europe. The meetings were held from September 17 to 26 in four European cities: Brussels, Belgium; Warsaw, Poland; Prague, Czech Republic; and Budapest, Hungary. The meetings were developed to provide basic information on the U.S. food safety system and activities and to review the foods provisions of the new bioterrorism legislation. Members of the European Commission participated in the meeting held in Brussels. The U.S. team was led by Melinda Plaisier, Director of the Office of International Programs. Karen Deasy and Don Sharp represented CDC. CFSAN participants included Mary Ayling, Marjorie Davidson, Mark Walderhaug, John Sheehan, and Camille Brewer. Representatives from seven other countries attended as well. The USDA-FAS (Foreign Agricultural Service) Agricultural Attaches in each country managed the logistical arrangements for the meetings. The team made courtesy visits to two dairy farms, one cheese factory, and one margarine manufacturer while in Europe. U.S. Ambassador to Poland Christopher Robert Hill met with team members and opened the meeting in Warsaw. A courtesy meeting was held with U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Nancy Brinker who expressed a keen interest in DHHS activities.

National Food Safety Education Conference Leads to Planning Opportunities

More than 600 food safety educators from the United States and around the world attended the National Food Safety Education Conference, co-sponsored by CFSAN, CDC, and USDA. Held September 18-20 in Orlando, Florida, the conference, "Thinking Globally-Working Locally," included a mix of presentations by high-ranking food safety officials from the United States and Great Britain. Joseph A. Levitt, Director of CFSAN, described FDA's initiatives concerning food safety and bioterrorism and identified the many recent regulatory and education projects aimed at reducing the incidence of foodborne illness. In addition to the general sessions, the conference offered breakout sessions focusing on both consumer and food service employee research and education initiatives. Many educators presented posters of their food safety education the other educators from their state and region, or in an international group, to assess projects. The concluding session provided a formal opportunity for attendees to meet what they had learned during the conference. The second part of the concluding session focused on creating new regional partnerships with the goal of developing ongoing communication or an education project. All of the more than 35 geographical working groups were successful in identifying a project to work on once they returned home.

Proceedings of the conference, as well as webcasts of some speeches and sessions will be available on the conference website in the near future. The conference website is http://www.fsis.usda.gov/orlando2002/index.htm.

Seafood HACCP Evaluation

On September 30, Mr. Joseph Levitt wrote a Dear Colleague letter informing the Food Community of an evaluation of FDA's Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) Program for seafood for fiscal years 2000 and 2001.

The report demonstrates steady progress by the seafood processing industry in implementing the full range of preventive controls that became mandatory in December 1997, as measured against the 1998/1999 evaluation. For each of the 4 years, the trend has been for the number of firms with no significant HACCP violations to increase and for the number of firms with HACCP violations warranting correction to decrease. This means that many firms have been correcting their deficiencies voluntarily. Firms with no significant violations now constitute the largest inspectional classification. The group of firms with HACCP violations that warrant regulatory or administrative action, a third inspectional classification, has consistently been the smallest, and has increased each year as some firms have failed the opportunity to make needed corrections. Based on FDA's historical classifications, in FY2001 approximately 85 percent of firms could be considered to be "in compliance."

The full evaluation report is available at FDA's website: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~comm/seaeval2.html.