As of December 2, laboratory-confirmed cases in the ongoing Salmonella outbreak linked to pistachios has reached 155, and CFIA now requires importers and manufacturers of Iranian pistachios to hold and test their products for Salmonella before they can be sold.
Posted to the Unified Agenda in September, FDA’s developing proposed rule to tighten Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) oversight has been sent to the White House for review—the final step before publication.
Although the estimated cost per disease incident ranged from $341 USD in Africa to $2,194 in Europe, the total economic burden of invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella was highest in Africa—especially sub-Saharan Africa—due to its prevalence and overall impact to public health in the region.
As part of the EU authorization procedure for a new food additive application, EFSA conducted a risk assessment for jagua (genipin-glycine) blue, which concluded no safety concern and established an acceptable daily intake (ADI). The fruit-derived food dye is already permitted in the U.S.
This episode of Food Safety Five discusses a farm-to-fork quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) for Listeria monocytogenes in cantaloupe, a study demonstrating the efficacy of antimicrobial peptides for reducing Salmonella in poultry, and the adoption of new international standards at the 48th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
To support Codex committee deliberations, an ad hoc joint FAO/WHO committee convened to recommend a gluten reference dose (RfD) in a risk-based precautionary allergen labeling (PAL) framework to ensure food safety for people with both celiac and immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated wheat allergies.
A European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) draft scientific opinion, which lowers the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) for dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), is available for public feedback. The new TWI is exceeded by Europeans in all age groups.
The global trend toward natural and functional foods has fueled the popularity of edible flowers. To investigate the associated food safety risks, researchers conducted a comprehensive literature review, and identified pyrrolizidine and tropane alkaloids as a significant concern.
A new study demonstrated how public health and regulatory initiatives targeting “ultra-processed foods” (UPFs) may have unintended consequences if definitions for the category and mechanistic understandings of processing are not refined.
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