Scientists develop worldwide food alert system

Countries producing food containing harmful bacteria and toxins could be named and shamed more quickly using a worldwide alert system devised by a team of scientists from London’s Kingston University. 

Professor Declan Naughton, a biochemist, led a team that developed a computer tool for tracking and monitoring contaminated food products. The goal is to prevent the products from reaching store shelves. 

Food safety and security is a worldwide priority issue. In accordance with the Beijing Declaration, all signatory countries have agreed to develop comprehensive programs for monitoring food safety and security on behalf of their citizens. -- PLos ONEThousands of alerts about contaminated food are produced each year, particularly by developed countries, but there is no single international system for monitoring food safety. This prompted Naughton and his colleagues, from the School of Life Sciences, to develop a program to analyze alerts and produce a global picture of the countries that trade and detect contaminated food that can be deadly or cause health problems from food poisoning to long term degenerative diseases. Naughton recently presented a summary of the team’s findings at a conference organized by the European Food Security Authority, the EU’s food safety and security watchdog.

Naughton said the program provides complex information “in a snapshot form.” He said it could be particularly helpful to developing countries that are new to food testing because information is easy to access and available in minutes. The program could also be applied to other global health hazards such as pest control or illegal animal or plant imports.     

China, Iran, Turkey, the United States and Spain were the top five offenders when it came to producing contaminated food, according to an analysis of data from 2003-2008. Over the same five-year period, Italy, Germany, the UK, Spain and the Netherlands were the countries that reported the largest number of contaminated products from other countries. Toxins in pistachio nuts from Iran, food recalled by major supermarket chains and imported products stopped by border agencies were among the alerts included in the analysis.

Naughton said the program could provide profiles of individual countries that had problems with food safety as well as identifying particular contaminants that needed investigating, such as high levels of mercury in fish.

“We’d like to develop the tool to create an international alert system that will provide real time information about emerging patterns and problems,” said Naughton. The program could also be used to help prepare for malicious or terrorist attempts to contaminate food, he added.  

Source:

Kingston University