Emergimg Risks

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SAFEFOODERA Stakeholder Group Meeting With
Industry - Emerging Risks - Copenhagen, 14 -
15 December 2006
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Emerging Risk Identification

• Why Emerging Risk Identification?
• Important tool for a timely recognition of
  critical situations
• Offers an increased number of options for action
  to the risk management.
• Consequently emerging risk identification is a
  crucial part of any coherent, effective and
  dynamic food policy.
• (In Europe Article 34 of Regulation (EC) No.
  178/2002)

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Present Limitations of Risk Analysis

• Long- term consequences and impacts of factors
  outside the food chain are usually neglected,
  assuming that the food supply production chain
  is self-contained in operation, space and time
• Models are usually based on recording of past
  occurrences, setting boundaries and levels
  rather than a formal evaluation of various
  cross-cutting upstream interacting processes
  (driving forces) influencing the evolution of a
  risk
• Risk assessment methods often ignore the human
  factor or use simplistic or standardised schemes
  of behaviour.

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PERIAPTs core event
PERIAPT- Workshop (Bonn, July 2004) Invited
participants representing different stakeholder
groups, ranging from inter-national
organisations, various research institutions,
industry, consumer organisations to governmental
bodies.
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Definitions Risk means a function of the
probability of an adverse health effect and the
severity of that effect, consequential to a
hazard Hazard means a biological, chemical or
physical agent in, or condition of, food or feed
with the potential to cause an adverse health
effect Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002
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Definitions Emerging Risk A potential food
or feed borne or diet-related hazard that may
become a risk for human health in the (near)
future. Periapt 2004
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Characteristics of an Emerging Risk
Identification System

• Anticipatory appraoch instead of responsive
  systems
• different from, but not a replacement of Early
  Warning Systems
• Early warning or rapid alert systems like the
  European RASFF, the Canadian Global Public
  Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), or the WHO
  network INFOSAN
• Shields in case of cyber- /food-terrorism and
  anti-tampering including task force systems like
  EU-BICHAT.

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Early Warning System AWACS

The detected indicator (signal) is the hazard
itself
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Early Warning System Tsunami

Again, the detected indicators (signal) is the
hazard itself!
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Pro-active Methodology Climate Forecast

Meteorological Station (Bavarian Alps)
Observed indicators are not part of the hazard
but (possibly) suitable to detect a risk
proactively.
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Emerging Risks The Holistic Approach
The holistic vision (Periapt 2004) Analysing
the host environment of the food supply chain.
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The holistic vision Examples
Economy Globalisation Globalisation makes the
food production chain increasingly complex.
Hence, reliable information on the history of
food is hard to get (limitations in
traceability). Nature Environment Climate A
climate change may lead to a modification of the
behaviour of microorganisms leading to new or
different biological food risks. . . . .
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Flow diagram holistic approach
Influential sectors
Critical factors
Indicators
PERIAPT 2004
Example (short term forecast) Emerging risk of
contamination of crop by mycotoxin-producing
moulds
Nature Environment
Climate
Rainfall
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Status in 5 15 years gt Will fish from the
arctic regions still be safe to eat? Slowly
degradable, semivolatile organic compounds (SOCs)
may undergo a volatilization-transport-deposition
cycle through the atmosphere Threats
Interdisciplinary, complex and global issue
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What to do?

• To deal with emerging risks in the field of food
  safety, it seems necessary to move from a
  re-active attitude towards a pro-active
  identification of food related risks.
• Driving forces of emerging food borne risks are
  eclectic and often not directly linked to the
  food production chain. The plurality of factors
  involved needs to be taken into account. Key
  issues need to be identified and weighted.

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What to do?

• (3) Knowledge needs to be combined coming from a
  larger variety of disciplines and areas of
  expertise (holistic approach). Additional
  emphasis is needed to bring together specialised
  knowledge in every aspect of risk issues. A
  dialogue between the disciplines should be
  enhanced e.g. by setting up interdisciplinary
  networks.
• Since influential (critical) factors are
  undergoing fundamental changes attention is
  needed to take changing conditions into
  consideration.

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Thank you for your attention and season
greetings!