INTERVENTION AS THE RATIONAL APPROACH TO CONTROL DISEASES OF MICROBIAL ETIOLOGY TRANSMITTED BY FOODS. An actualization of the tale of the frog and the grouse?after Lafontaine (1621?1695)

Integrating microbial decontamination with organic acids in HACCP programmes for muscle foods: prospects and controversies

A considerable literature reports the antibacterial efficacy of dilute solutions of organic acids (lactic, acetic). With carcasses an overall reduction in surface contaminants of 1.5 log cycles can be expected. Carcass decontamination may not improve the safety of the resultant meat, but laboratory trials confirm that acid decontamination of subprimal and retail cuts is more efficacious. An advantage over many other intervention strategies is that residual antimicrobial activity is demonstrable over extended periods of storage. These studies have also shown that some meatborne pathogens are particularly sensitive to organic acids (i.e., Yersinia enterocolitica) while others are resistant (i.e., E. coli O157:H7). Dilute solutions of organic acids (1 to 3%) are generally without effect on the desirable sensory properties of meat when used as a carcass decontaminant. However, dependent on treatment conditions, lactic and acetic acid can produce adverse sensory changes when applied directly to meat cuts, with irreversible changes in appearance being a frequent occurrence. It is speculated that organic acid decontamination will be implemented in American abattoirs in an effort to meet specified performance standards for pathogen reduction as part of an overall HACCP program. In contrast, the EU advocates that strictly controlled processing hygiene is sufficient to ensure the safety of the product. Additional research is necessary to establish a set of treatment conditions that may permit a practicable reduction in bacterial contamination throughout the processing chain with a measurable effect on safety and storage life, without imposing any change in sensory properties. It will also be necessary to develop standard, objective measures to assess HACCP and the efficacy of decontamination procedures. Without such commercial studies controversy on the practicality of acid decontamination will persist.

Identification, assessment and management of food-related microbiological hazards: historical, fundamental and psycho-social essentials

Microbiological risk assessment aimed at devising measures of hazard management, should take into account all perceived hazards, including those not empirically identified. It should also recognise that safety cannot be "inspected into" a food. Rather hazard management should be the product of intervention strategies in accordance with the approach made mandatory in the EU Directive 93/43 and the USDA FSIS Pathogen Reduction HACCP system; Final Rule. It is essential too that the inherent variability of the biological attributes affecting food safety is recognised in any risk assessment. The above strategic principles may be conceptualised as a four-step sequence, involving (i) identification and quantification of hazards; (ii) design and codification of longitudinally integrated ("holistic") technological processes and procedures to eliminate, or control growth and metabolism of, pathogenic and toxinogenic organisms; (iii) elaboration of microbiological analytical standard operating procedures, permitting validation of "due diligence" or responsible care, i.e. adherence to adopted intervention strategies. This should be supported by empirically assessed reference ranges, particularly for marker organisms, while the term "zero tolerance" is refined throughout to tolerable safety limit; (iv) when called for, the need to address concerns arising from lay perceptions of risk which may lack scientific foundation. In relation to infectious and toxic hazards in the practical context the following general models for quantitative holistic risk assessment are presented: (i) the first order, basic lethality model; (ii) a second approximation taking into account the amount of food ingested in a given period of time; (iii) a further adjustment accounting for changes in colonization levels during storage and distribution of food commodities and the effects of these on proliferation of pathogens and toxin production by bacteria and moulds. Guidelines are provided to address: (i) unsubstantiated consumer concern over the wholesomeness of foods processed by an innovative procedure; and (ii) reluctance of small food businesses to adopt novel strategies in food safety. Progress here calls for close cooperation with behavioural scientists to ensure that investment in developing measures to contain risk deliver real benefit.

Salmonellosis control: estimated economic costs

Salmonellosis, a common human intestinal disorder primarily caused by Salmonella-contaminated meats and poultry, was estimated to cost Americans around one billion dollars in 1987. Only medical costs and productivity losses were included in the estimate of costs of the two million cases estimated to occur annually. If pain and suffering, lost leisure time, and chronic disease costs could be easily quantified, the estimate would increase significantly. Other procedures for calculating the value of life could change the estimates of economic benefits of reducing human salmonellosis. Incorporating losses to farmers, whose animals have reduced feed efficiency, reduced weight gain, or deaths because of chronic salmonellosis, would increase the size of estimates. Costs of food safety regulatory programs and costs to the industry for product recalls and plant closures due to foodborne salmonellosis outbreaks, if included, would also increase the size of estimates. The National Academy of Sciences has endorsed risk assessment as a necessary method for evaluating and improving food safety regulatory programs, especially as applied to Salmonella contamination of poultry. This report reviews and updates research on cost estimates of salmonellosis. Understanding the costs of salmonellosis is an important part of risk assessment, as a key objective of regulatory programs is reducing human salmonellosis.

A centenary of academic and less learned food microbiology. Pitfalls of the past and promises for the future

A review is presented of the development of Food Microbiology from its roots in different disciplines - including human and animal medicine, general microbiology, agricultural science and food chemistry - to an autonomous science with the main vocation to provide the knowledge allowing providing food that is wholesome, of high quality and acceptable in the microbiological sense. This evolution entailed a change in approach from mere, and often rather primitive inspection of end-products to intervention by (i) identification of hazard points ("critical points" or CPs) by ecological studies; (ii) elimination of CPs by elaboration of Good Manufacturing and Distribution Practices (GMPs); (iii) validation of GMPs by monitoring production lines and final products at point of sale and gauging the results by Risk Analysis. It is emphasized, that although advanced and ecologically sound techniques have become available, it will still require extensive education and training at all levels before the scientific advances outlined in this review will have been fully integrated in day-to-day food production and catering in developed as well developing areas of the world. Interdisciplinary instruction and co-operation cannot be missed in attempts to reach this goal.