Europe's alert system highlights aflatoxin risk to EU food chain
week by the detection of potentially carcinogenic aflatoxins in
nearly 40 food products on sale in the European market, including
the Czech Republic, reports Lindsey Partos.
Mycotoxins, to which aflatoxins belong, are naturally-occurring toxins produced by certain fungi that can grow on various foods such as cereals, nuts, dried fruits, apples and legumes under certain environmental conditions.
Aflatoxins have been shown to cause cancer in animals and aflatoxin B1, the most toxic, can cause cancer in humans.
But despite European rules, in one week last month member states detected nearly 40 products on the shelves contaminated by this harmful toxin.
High levels of exposure to these mycotoxins have been found to cause a range of adverse health effects, potentially carcinogenic and mutagenic (damage genes) in laboratory animals. There is a concern that similar effects may occur in humans through long-term consumption of foods and beverages that contain relatively high levels of these contaminants.
In contrast to other mycotoxins, no Tolerable Daily Intakes (TDIs) has been set by Europe for aflatoxins because they have been shown to cause cancer in the liver of laboratory animals by damaging DNA.
They have also been linked to liver cancer in a number of developing countries, where some foods that are an important part of the diet can contain high levels of aflatoxins, a genotoxic carcinogen.
Europe's former Scientific Committee for Food (tasks of which are now handled by the European Food Safety Authority) recommends that aflatoxin concentrations in food should be reduced to the lowest levels reasonably achievable.
Europe's Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) reports that food agencies in Spain, the UK, Czech Republic, and Italy all detected alfatoxins in a wide range of foods, from pistachio nuts and melon seeds from Iran, to Indian chilli powder, and peanuts from China.
In place since 1979 RASFF provides national authorities with a tool to swap information on national measures taken to ensure food safety, and communicate (a legal obligation) on foods withdrawn from the food chain.
In the eyes of the increasingly cynical consumer, food safety, and the efficient checks and balances in the food safety chain, can not be underestimated.
But the number of food-linked alerts in the European Union leapt by over forty per cent in 2003 on the previous year, with the majority sourced in the 'old' member states.
'Alerts' require immediate action due to the risk of food contamination to the consumer, whereas for 'information' notifications (the case for the aflatoxin detection in week 14) the food product has yet to reach other member markets in the RASSF network.
A recent report from RASFF reveals the number of 'information exchanges' - alerts and information combined - had risen from 3024 in 2002 to 4286 in 2003.
Food makers operating in today's climate have no choice but to implement rigorous food safety tools, from machinery to staff training, into their daily costs.
Putting a price on food safety is 'frankly impossible' because it is totally integrated, says Francois Perroud, a spokesperson for number one food maker Nestle.
At every level quality systems are in place to protect our reputation - including the day to day finely-tuned tracking in our 500 factories, he recently told FoodNavigator.com.
