Contamination Control

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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is offering an online course through its FAO eLearning Academy on the threat that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses to global health, the role of the food and agriculture sector, and the impact of AMR on agrifood systems.

To align the Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for 127 agricultural and veterinary chemicals with international authorities, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) recently released its annual call for comment on proposed changes.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA’s NIFA) has granted a Michigan State University (MSU) research team $611,000 to explore the uptake of toxic heavy metals in food crops, with the goal of providing a guide containing mitigation strategies and decision-making resources for growers and policymakers.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released the first dataset collected under the fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 5), which is intended to provide new information that will improve EPA’s understanding of the frequency that 29 per- and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) and lithium are found in U.S. drinking water systems, and at what levels.

Key Technology recently introduced its new COMPASS® family of food optical sorters, ideal for sorting processed, frozen, and pre-processed vegetables and fruits, nuts, leafy greens, potato chips, confections, and other food products.

Based on the results of a recent Clostridium perfringens Market Basket Study, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has concluded that the guidance currently being used for the cooling of large-mass, non-intact ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products is adequate and does not merit revision.

In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we are joined by Kris de Smet, D.V.M., Head of the Food Hygiene Team under the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety at the European Commission. Dr. de Smet discusses his work with the European Commission and Codex Alimentarius in areas such as Salmonella mitigation, foodborne illness outbreak preparedness and management, and food safety culture improvement and measurement.

In a recent article published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated the global incidence of human brucellosis to be 1.6–2.1 million new cases per year, which is three to four times higher than the previous estimate of 500,000 new cases per year.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified a reoccurring, emerging, and persistent (REP) strain of Escherichia coli O157:H7—REPEXH02—that has been implicated in significant foodborne illness outbreaks linked to leafy greens from 2016–2019.

A survey of non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) found on retail foods sold in the UK has shown the overall prevalence of Salmonella to be low, although there is great genetic diversity among the Salmonella that was present, which may hinder outbreak investigations and source attribution in the case of foodborne illness outbreaks.