Food Protection Trends - October 2012 - (Page 600)

IVAN PARkIN LECTuRE Industry and Government Roles in Food Safety Controls – A Perspective from Two Sides Jenny Scott Senior Advisor, Office of Food Safety, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition College Park, Maryland am deeply honored to be among the food safety professionals recognized by IAFP to give this prestigious food safety lecture. Let me preface my remarks with a disclaimer – the viewpoints expressed here should not be interpreted as reflecting the position of any of my employers, past or present. My perspectives will be those of someone who spent 29 years working for an industry food trade association and 3 years at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The legal responsibility for producing safe food falls directly on those producing the food – the food industry. The government is not in the business of producing food – the government’s role is that of verification that the industry is meeting its responsibility. However, there are food safety functions that each carry out that are very similar and that complement each other. Moreover, both industry and government have a common goal of ensuring a safe, abundant, nutritious food supply. Broadly and simplistically, we approach food safety by (1) assessing the risk of a hazard in a food, (2) determining how to control the hazard and implementing the controls, and (3) verifying the hazards are controlled. To make safe food, the first area to be addressed is to assess the risk of illness or injury from the food being produced. Industry generally assesses this by identifying and evaluating the hazards associated with the food, including the process used to produce it. Industry uses information from the literature (e.g., reports related to contamination, growth, inactivation and survival of pathogens in foods), from industry testing of ingredients and finished products (e.g., company data), and from the government, e.g., data on outbreaks from CDC, FDA, FSIS and the states; from surveys I of contaminants in food; from reports on contamination (e.g., from FDA’s Reportable Food Registry and from recalls); and findings from inspections of facilities with problems (e.g., inspection reports, environmental assessments). Environmental assessments reflect a new approach being used by FDA to understand why a food safety event occurred (root cause) and to identify preventive controls necessary to avoid a recurrence. The information related to the root cause of problems helps industry in preventing problems from similar situations; this is why sharing such information is so important. Although the government has not done a very good job of this in the past, it is getting better. FDA has posted such assessments related to two recent produce-related outbreaks on its website. It is not common for industry to conduct a formal risk assessment to estimate adverse outcomes such as numbers of illnesses if a pathogen were present in a specific product, since this is not needed to determine appropriate control measures. However, industry has found such risk assessments useful for some purposes. For example, industry has used risk assessments to support labeling a treated product as “pasteurized” to meet the requirements of the section 403(h) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (which says a food is misbranded if it is represented as pasteurized unless certain requirements are met to ensure efficacy against organisms of public health significance and FDA has been notified). Industry also has used risk assessments to support positions such as a low risk of listeriosis from low numbers of Listeria monocytogenes in a food that does not support growth. Individual companies have also used risk assessments to support the need for and extent of a recall. Government uses a similar process to assess which foods present a risk to the consumer (e.g., identifying and evaluating potential hazards associated with a food and a process). Government also conducts more formal evaluations of risk, creating risk profiles and qualitative or quantitative risk assessments to describe the risk to consumers, in order to inform risk management policy. These then become resources for industry in assessing hazards in or risk from specific food products. To conduct such risk assessments, the government must often rely on industry data. 600 FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS | OCTOBER 2012

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

Food Protection Trends - October 2012
Contents
Sustaining Members
From Your President
Commentary from the Executive Director
The CHEF Project
Characteristics of Food Contact Surface Materials
IAFP 2012 In Review
Award Winners
Black Pearl Award Winner
Ivan Parkin Lecture
John H. Silliker Lecture
Travel Award for State or Local Health or State Agricultural Department Employees
Student Travel Scholarships
Minutes of the 2012 Annual Business Meeting
Committee Minutes
Executive Board Response to Committee Recommendations
Silent Auction Results
Exhibitors of IAFP 2012
New Members
What’s Happening in Food Safety
Industry Products
Coming Events
Advertising Index
Journal of Food Protection Table of Contents
Membership Application

Food Protection Trends - October 2012