Agenda Item 2.4	Conference Room Document 78

second fao/who global forum of food safety regulators

Bangkok, Thailand, 12-14 October 2004

Prevention and Response to Intentional Contamination

(Prepared by the United States of America)

Background

While intentional contamination remains rare, this risk, including bio-terrorism threats, may have local, regional, or global impact and should be given serious consideration by food safety authorities and the food industry.

Although the Food and Drug Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS/FDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) have always been vigilant in safeguarding the United States food supply, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, brought a heightened awareness to the vulnerability of the food supply to intentional contamination. The U.S. has expanded its activities and capabilities by taking additional measures to enhance the security of products under its regulatory umbrella.

Discussion

To ensure food safety, the U.S. has enhanced programs to reduce the risk of food borne illness and to prevent bioterrorism attacks against the food supply. The U.S. food regulatory agencies have made a significant investment in time, energy, and resources directed at ensuring food security and have partnered with other federal and state agencies and private industry. The following measures have substantially improved food security in the U.S.:

• FSIS and HHS/FDA have conducted vulnerability assessments of high risk domestic and import products. The conclusions drawn from these assessments provided each agency with critical information in the development of countermeasures (food shields) to mitigate the vulnerabilities in the farm to table continuum.
• FSIS is ensuring that its own employees are trained and prepared to handle crisis situations by the development and issuance of a series of directives prescribing specific food security actions for each threat level. Employees are also being provided with anti-terrorism awareness training.
• FSIS strengthened import controls to ensure the safety of imported products by deploying 20 new Import Surveillance Liaison Inspectors to augment the surveillance efforts of traditional FSIS inspectors at port locations.
• FSIS and HHS/FDA have expanded their laboratory capabilities to test for non-traditional microbial, chemical and radiological threat agents and completed the construction of Biosecurity Level-3 laboratories.
• FSIS has published the following security guidance information: FSIS Safety and Security Guidelines for the Transportation and Distribution of Meat, Poultry and Egg Products, FSIS Security Guidelines for Food Processors and Food Safety and Food Security: What Consumers Need to Know. These voluntary guidelines are designed to help facilities and distributors that process or transport meat, poultry and egg products to strengthen their food security operations. They are posted on the FSIS website and are available in several languages.
• The HHS/FDA has published the following food security guidance documents: Food Producers, Processors, and Transporters: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance; Importers and Filers: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance; Retail Food Stores and Food Service Establishments: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance; and Dairy Farms, Bulk Milk Transporters, Bulk Milk Transfer Stations and Fluid Milk Processors: Food Security Preventive Measures Guidance. These voluntary guidelines are designed as an aid to the industry to identify the kinds of preventive measures that may be taken to minimize the risk that food under their control will be subject to tampering or other malicious, criminal, or terrorist actions. These documents are available on FDA’s website.
• The HHS/FDA published consumer information on what to do if consumers suspect tampering of a food product. This information is available on FDA’s website.
• The Bioterrorism Act of 2002 gave the HHS/FDA additional authority to register foreign and domestic food facilities, require prior notice for imported food, establish new record keeping requirements, and require administrative detention. HHS/FDA has published a final regulation for administrative detention, interim final regulations for registration and prior notice; and a proposed regulation for the establishment and maintenance of records. Information about each of these regulations can be found on HHS/FDA’s website (www.fda.gov).
• Also, the U.S. has conducted a number of emergency response exercises to assess our capabilities to respond to a food terrorism event. Some of these exercises were done in cooperation with Canada and Mexico. Other examples of International Cooperation Include:
• The development of the World Health Organization (WHO) document on “Terrorist Threat to Food: Guidance for Establishing and Strengthening Prevention and Response Systems”
• The Tripartite (US, Canada, and Mexico) Agreement on Mitigating Vulnerabilities in Food Processing.

Conclusions

Since both unintentional and deliberate contamination may be managed by many of the same mechanisms, intentional contamination should be integrated into existing national food safety and disease surveillance and prevention programs. International communication and cooperation on this issue are essential.