The development and implementation of effective systems to identify vulnerabilities in food chains to chemical and microbiological contaminants must take account of consumer priorities and preferences. The present investigation attempted to understand consumer perceptions associated with chemical and microbiological contaminants in four specific food chains (drinking water, farmed salmon, chicken and milk powder). To this end, ten focus group discussions were held in five different countries (Poland, Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Brazil). Consumers expressed higher concerns about chemical, as compared with microbial, contaminants. Chemical contaminants were more strongly associated with the potential for severe consequences, long-term effects and lack of personal control. Traceability was considered by consumers as a useful tool that offers the potential to improve consumer confidence in food safety. 1 The term food chain refers to all stages involved in the production, distribution and consumption of a food product. Food chains consist of different food chain actors, such as producers and retailers, that each have a particular input into the food chain.
The aim of this project is the identification of emerging chemical and biological risks for human, animal and environmental health in sea water farming of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) and Pacific Oyster (Crassostrea gigas) by using the TNO ERIS system. ERIS is based on a text mining tool to identify semantic relationships between concepts in large document collections and it uses as firm basis, the TNO proprietary ontology which contains certain concepts, key words and text mining rules. First, an iterative and interactive ontology adaptation process was performed to tailor ERIS to EFSA's needs. In the second phase the text mining was applied to scientific abstracts from databases MEDLINE®/PubMed® and FSTA®, published January 2015-June 2016. The results were evaluated by experts to identify potential emerging risks according to an accepted protocol based on a multi-eye principle. For the dataset January 2015-June 2016 ERIS processed 1,821,576 abstracts and retrieved 707 abstracts (422 for salmon and 285 for oyster) with one or more relevant relationships. After the two rounds of expert evaluation the number of potential emerging risks identified was 18 for salmon and 10 for oyster. A better balance between invested resources in iterations and benefit will improve with more food areas of interest, expert's knowledge and re-use of keywords. Adding more data sources depends on the research question and available budget for data licenses and copyright clearance. It is recommended to compare the current automated supported approach with manual approaches by expert groups and with other text mining approaches, to further develop quantitative measures and to explore sharing parts of the ontology as 'open source' to generate more trust. Finally, ERIS is a valuable tool to automatically select relevant research abstracts allowing the identification of potential emerging risks from a trusted and manageable data set after expert evaluation.
The EU Food Supplements Directive (2002/46/EC) mandates the determination of both maximum and minimum permitted levels (MPLs) for micronutrients. In order to determine MPLs which are feasible for particular population groups, a scientific approach should be used in which risk of high intake, risk of inadequacy and benefits are assessed in an integrated way taking all available data and severity and incidence of effect into account. In 2004, Renwick et al. (ILSI Europe) published a scientifically valid, flexible and pragmatic basis for a risk-benefit approach, which has been further developed here to make it a practical and quantifiable approach to be used by risk managers. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated using demo cases on iron and folate. The proposed approach has the capacity to utilize all relevant data available, including data from human studies, bioavailability data showing variability between specific forms of micronutrients and, in the case of animal studies, data on species comparability. The approach is therefore both practical and flexible, making it well suited to risk managers tasked with determining safe intake levels for micronutrients in different forms and for particular population groups.
The hamster is known to display very high rates of monooxygenase-mediated biotransformation. In comparison with other species little knowledge has been gathered with respect to the nature of its cytochrome P450 enzymes and their respective inducibility. We studied the consequences of induction of P450 enzymes in rats and Syrian golden hamsters using the regioselective oxidative O-demethylation of the coumarin derivative scoparone. This metabolic conversion indicates differential effects of P450 inducers in the rat, in which various types of inducers cause different shifts in the isoscopoletin/scopoletin metabolite ratio (I/S-ratio). Liver microsomes from hamster not treated with P450 inducers oxidized scoparone much more efficiently than liver microsomes of untreated rats. In rat liver microsomes total demethylation rates of scoparone increased upon in vivo treatment with phenobarbital or beta-naphthoflavone. Phenobarbital reduced the I/S-ratio whereas beta-naphthoflavone caused an increase in this ratio. In hamster liver microsomes both phenobarbital and beta-naphthoflavone treatments resulted in a decrease in the I/S ratio. In this species the total scoparone demethylation rate was not much affected by phenobarbital, but beta-naphthoflavone caused a huge increase in over-all scoparone biotransformation. In both species, dexamethasone, isoniazid and clofibrate were much less effective. In contrast to the rat, in the hamster the scoparone biotransformation profile cannot be used to differentiate between phenobarbital- or beta-naphthoflavone-treated animals.
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