The first speaker, Robert Tauxe from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will provide an overview of the use of novel technologies, including irradiation, to reduce the frequency of foodborne illness. Next, Martin Duplessis from Health Canada will describe the potential advance in food safety that irradiation of beef could provide. He will provide an overview of the data that lead to the proposal to permit irradiated ground beef in the marketplace. Ronald Eustice, Food Irradiation Newsletter, will provide an overview of the growing national and international marketplace presence of irradiated meat and produce. Yaohua (Betty) Feng, University of California, Davis, will present messages that work in the marketplace based upon her research and Wegmans supermarket experience as relayed by Kathleen O’Donnell.
The session is designed to facilitate a dialogue informed by an overview of the current international policy and consumer research on food irradiation and will focus on advancing food safety innovative technologies to the next level, while ensuring that appropriate educational messages are developed for consumers and industry stakeholders.