Food contaminants: scientific and public health implications

This paper attempts to put into perspective the issue of contaminants in foods, and includes both microbiological and chemical contaminants, whether naturally present (intrinsic toxicants such as mycotoxins) or occurring as a result of human activity or environmental conditions. The public has a different perspective on food safety priorities than do food professionals. To the extent that governments reflect public opinion, research priorities and regulations often address those issues about which the public is concerned, even though they are of a lesser food safety impact. Prioritising food safety issues is critical. In developing exposure data, an important factor involves sampling, an area that historically has received little attention by the research community. The problems involved in developing exposure data are of such magnitude that risk analyses often become a matter of estimating relative risk based on questionable exposure data (incidence and level data) and even more questionable toxicological data. This may force the regulator to turn from science to the more practical economic and political factors in setting regulatory levels. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is wide disparity in regulatory levels among countries. There is a great need, therefore, for implementing carefully designed quality control programs, and for continuing research efforts to improve the precision of analytical methods, the toxicological data base on toxicants in foods, and methods of risk assessment. Such research will be invaluable in setting limits for food toxicants, in developing regulatory control programs, and in providing information that can be used to protect public health and educate the consumer.