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Terrorist Threats to Foods

Conference Room Document proposed by the World Health Organisation

Year of publication 2002

Author Nutrition Division

Product type Meeting

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) The potential for terrorists to deliberately contaminate foods must be taken seriously. On 17 January 2002, the WHO Executive Board adopted a resolution (EB109.R5) that recognized the importance of safeguarding food in a global public response to the deliberate use of biological and chemical agents and radionuclear attacks to cause harm. Reducing these threats of sabotage will require an unprecedented degree of co-operation among health, agriculture, and law enforcement agencies of governments; the food industry and others in the private sector; and the public. Public health authorities must not only take the lead in surveillance and incident response for disease and other adverse public health events, they must also strongly support preventive measures along the entire food chain. A substantial involvement of the food industry and others in the private sector in the development and implementation of measures to prevent, detect, and respond to incidents of deliberate contamination is e ssential. Individual consumers must be aware of the potential for deliberate, as well as inadvertent, contamination in their procurement and preparation of food.

Meeting symbol GF CRD WHO-1

Language English

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