Food Protection Trends - February 2012 - (Page 64)

“FOOD FOR THOuGHT” from YOuR PrESIDENT n December, I attended the Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), a meeting I have been attending on and off since 1996. The meeting brings together a diverse group of people with an interest in risk analysis, including microbiologists, toxicologists, risk assessors, economists, and policymakers. In addition to sessions on microbial and chemical food safety, there were sessions on chemicals in the environment and climate change. It is always interesting to meet people with different interests and perspectives, and often they want to learn more about food safety. After all, everyone eats, and everyone wants safe food. IAFP has a strong contingent of members who attend SRA, many of whom participate in the microbial modeling and risk analysis PDG. This is a forward-looking group that has helped to advance the science of food safety through mathematical modeling of microorganisms in foods, and predicting the outcome of various scenarios, including the likelihood that organisms will multiply and cause disease. As an organization, we are stronger when we partner with groups which have a common interest in advancing food safety. Prior to the SRA meeting, I helped to organize a workshop on microbial dose-response assessment. A dose-response assessment characterizes the relationships between pathogen dose and the likelihood and severity of illness. Generally, the larger the dose, the more likely an individual will become ill. However, with some pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, I By ISABEL WALLS PRESIDENT “As an organization, we are stronger when we partner with groups which have a common interest in advancing food safety” a very low dose is sufficient to make someone ill. Many factors affect dose response, including host susceptibility, the type of food consumed and the virulence of the pathogen. There are many unanswered questions, for example, when there is an outbreak, why do some people get sick while others don’t? This could be related to the amount of contaminated food consumed, or a function of their immune system, or other host factors. Risk assessors try to extrapolate from experimental studies in laboratory animals to make predictions about human health and disease, as there are few dose-response studies in humans, due to the unethical nature of most studies. There are some human dose-response data available from volunteer studies but these are done in normal, healthy populations, not in the more susceptible subpopulations, so risk assessors may need to extrapolate from the healthy human hosts to more susceptible subpopulations. One of the goals of the microbial dose-response workshop was to examine the role of the human microbiome. The microbiome is the term used for microbial communities found at several different sites on the human body, including nasal passages, skin, and gastrointestinal tract. Within the body of a healthy adult, microbial cells are estimated to outnumber human cells by a factor of ten to one. These communities remain largely unstudied, leaving their influence upon illness and immunity almost entirely unknown. Past President Lee-Ann Jaykus gave a presentation on the interactions of the human microbiome with microbial enteric pathogens. In normal healthy hosts, the cells that line the gastrointestinal tract provide barriers to pathogen invasion and assist the human host in identifying and clearing pathogens that are ingested. However, the pathogen doses that overcome host defenses and cause disease in humans are rarely known. 64 FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS | FEBRUARY 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - February 2012

Food Protection Trends - February 2012
Contents
Sustaining Members
Food for Thought from Your President
Commentary from the Executive Director
Efficacy of Cleaning and Sanitizing Agents against Attached Listeria monocytogenes on Meat Slicer Components
Characteristics of Restaurants Associated with Critical Food Safety Violations
IAFP 2012–2013 Secretary Election
IAFP 2012 Award Nominations
New Members
What’s Happening in Food Safety
Industry Products
IAFP 2012
Coming Events
Advertising Index
Journal of Food Protection Table of Contents
Membership Application

Food Protection Trends - February 2012