S15 Identification of Emerging Risks in Food – Different Approaches to Achieve a Common Goal

Thursday, 30 March 2017: 13:30-15:00
Arc (The Square)
Primary Contact: Raquel Garcia Matas
Organizer: Raquel Garcia Matas
Convenors: Tobin Robinson , Carmen Savelli and Sarah Cahill
The successful identification of risks at their early inception is at the heart of public health protection and becoming increasingly important in food safety management. Early recognition of emerging risks has the potential to become a significant preventive instrument at the disposal of the food safety community. This symposium will provide an overview of some of the current approaches to identification of emerging risks being developed and applied by International and European institutions, industry, and academic researchers. Three presentations will be followed by a panel discussion aimed at addressing the strengths and weaknesses of such approaches, the challenges in identification of emerging issues, and the importance of collaboration in optimising such approaches.

At the regional and international level the approaches to identification of emerging issues, to date, have focussed mainly on the exploitation of knowledge networks and individual and institutional expertise. The session will look at the how different organisations (EFSA, FAO, WHO) have approached this and used the resulting information to guide their work.

Industry well recognizes the importance of being forewarned of potential risks and this session will present some of the tools which are being used in the food industry, including webscouting tools, based on text mining principles, to identify emerging risks with the support of a network of experts. It will, also, look at how industry is exploring the opportunity to extract additional information from raw data generated for other purposes (e.g., analytical data), trend analysis, and vulnerability maps.

Other more systematic approaches are being developed by research and academic institutions. To illustrate this, the session will include an approach to assess chemicals currently registered under REACH legislation for the identification of potential emerging chemical risks in the food and feed chain by evaluating parameters related to exposure (tonnage, release, biodegradation, and potential accumulation) and toxicity.

Presentations

13:50
Networks of Knowledge - Sharing of Information and Expertise
Ana Afonso, European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)
14:10
Testing New Methodologies for Identification of Emerging Chemical Risks in Food
Jan Oltmanns, Forschungs- und Beratungsinstitut Gefahrstoffe GmbH (FoBiG)
14:30
Panel Discussion
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