Chemical contaminants are unwanted chemicals in food and feedstuffs, and include pesticide and veterinary drug residues, fungal toxins (mycotoxins), food ingredients, environmental contaminants and natural toxins. Defining cause and effect of exposure to a chemical is problematic, often exacerbated by the delay between exposure and onset of symptoms. However, there are reports of adverse health effects following a number of incidents of exposure to particular chemicals and also a numbers of instances where episodically high concentrations of chemical contaminants were detected and traced back to a specific event. The impact on society may be economic, environmental, social and. or political. The cost may range from a few thousand Euros, to meet the direct cost of compliance or monitoring analysis, to many millions of Euros for court prosecutions, bankruptcy, product disposal, food legislation, monitoring and surveillance, damage to brand or reputation of the product or country, decline in tourist income, or loss of life.
In recent years monitoring and surveillance schemes have been implemented in many countries including the European Union. These have potentially prevented/ reduced economic, environmental, social and political impact of such incidences. Establishment of EFSA, RASFF and global harmonisation efforts in food safety monitoring and assurance have improved substantially consumer protection but these efforts are costly. Learning from past events and appreciating their magnitude will help refine and improve food safety assurance measures into the future. Thus, MoniQA aims to illustrate progression from disaster (chemical contamination) to prevention.
The basis for discussion, and further development of the MoniQA Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Toolbox, is a list of major chemical contaminants incidents in food and feedstuffs and their economic, environmental, social and political impact. This list will be published in QAS and as a Wikipedia site, which can be kept up-to-date as incidents occur. A workshop (ESR, New Zealand, 2011), bringing together experts from socio-economics and food safety assurance, will generate a robust and comprehensive assessment of such incidents, which will be useful for the food industry and food regulators as well as food scientists and consumer representatives, and enable better appreciation of the impact of chemical contamination of food and the importance of food safety monitoring.
Since the end of the 19th Century, incidents of chemical contamination in foods and the environment, which affect the lives of people around the globe, have been documented and reported. In a recent review undertaken by ESR (NZ), some 40 major chemical contamination events were cited between 1888 and 2010 all with significant impact on consumers’ health as well as remedial costs. This review will be published in QAS during 2011 and highlights the economic, environmental, social, and political costs. An evolution is apparent, igniting legal action and legislative changes, and finally implementation of monitoring and surveillance alerts to insure risks are identified and managed – if possible – before they reach the consumer.
This activity is led by ESR (NZ) and achieved in collaboration with FERA (UK) and ICC (AT).
Contact: Barbara Thompson (barbara [dot] thomson [AT] esr [dot] cri [dot] nz) ESR, NZ
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