Abstract
Intentional contamination of the food supply poses a real and potentially catastrophic threat to society. Overall, it has the potential to result in disastrous and far-reaching effects, including direct morbidity and/or mortality, disruption of food distribution, loss of consumer confidence in government and the food supply, business failures, trade restrictions, and ripple effects on the economy. Key interrelated factors specific to food and the food system create this unusual vulnerability, both structural and social. The efficiency of the food system enables products derived from a wide range of global sources to be sourced, produced, and distributed rapidly due to the speed of national and global just-in-time supply chains. The food industry’s routine food safety measures are not designed to protect against high-impact deliberate contamination. When contamination occurs, identification of its nature and extent may take days, weeks, or even longer. Unintentional foodborne illness can further complicate recognition of intentional contamination events due to the delay in positive association of illnesses to the intentional event. The food/agriculture sector’s infrastructure must be strengthened to mitigate potential harm resulting from deliberate contamination, thereby making the food system less vulnerable to attack or destructive economic outcomes. New upward price pressures, declining economies, and constantly changing global trade along the food system supply chain have introduced a new urgency for greater diligence in food defense against deliberate contamination with either economic or terrorist motives. Initiatives include the development of specific countermeasures to minimize or eliminate vulnerabilities, as well as the development of practical solutions that enhance the capability to rapidly identify, contain, respond to, and recover from intentional contamination, both real and threatened. These activities must encompass the entire worldwide farm-to-table food system, from pre-farm inputs through retail sale, consumer food consumption, and public health system response.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Kinsey JD, Stinson TF, Degeneffe DJ, Ghosh K, Busta FF (2009) Consumers response to a new food safety issue: food terrorism. In: Barbosa-Canovas GV (ed) Global issues in food science and technology. Elsevier, New York, pp 145–161
Ostrowsky J, Kennedy SP, Busta FF (2006) Priorities for research in food defense. In: Addressing foodborne threats to health: policies, practice, and global coordination, Forum on Microbial Threats, Session VII, NAS Institute of Medicine, Report. The National Academies, Washington, DC, pp 247–254
Kennedy SP, Busta FF (2007) Biosecurity: food protection and defense. In: Doyle MP, Beuchat LR (eds) Food microbiology: fundamentals and frontiers, 3rd edn. ASM, Washington, DC, pp 87–102, Chapter 5
Kuiper HA, Kleter GA (2009) Special issue: early awareness of emerging risks to food and feed safety. Food Chem Toxicol 47(5):909–1039
Scharff RL (2010) Health-related costs from foodborne illness in the United States. Pew Commission Report of the Produce Safety Project at Georgetown University. www.producesafetyproject.org. 3 Mar 2010
Center for Science in the Public Interest (2009) Outbreak alert!: analyzing foodborne outbreaks 1998 to 2007, 11th edn. Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, DC
Dalziel GR (2009) Food defense incidents 1950–2008: a chronology and analysis of incidents involving the malicious contamination of the food supply chain. Center of Excellence for National Security, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore
Poupard JA, Miller LA (1992) History of biological warfare: catapults to capsomeres. Ann NY Acad Sci 666:9–20
Mayor A (2004) Poison waters, deadly vapor and sweet sabotage. In: Greek fire, poison arrows & scorpion bombs: biological and chemical warfare in the ancient world. Overlook Press/Peter Mayer Publishers, Woodstock, pp 99–118, pp 145–169
Harris S (1992) Japanese biological warfare research on humans: a case study of microbiology and ethics. Ann NY Acad Sci 666:21–52
Harris SH (2003) Japanese biomedical experimentation during the World-War-II Era. In: Lounsbury DE, Bellamy RF (eds) Military medical ethics, vol II. Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, Washington, DC, pp 463–506
Torok TJ, Tauxe RV, Wise RP, Livengood JR, Sokolow R, Mauvais S, Birkness KA, Skeels MR, Horan JM, Foster LR (1997) A large community outbreak of salmonellosis caused by intentional contamination of restaurant salad bars. JAMA 278:389–395
Mohtadi H, Murshid AP (2009) Risk of catastrophic terrorism: an extreme value approach. J Appl Econometrics 24(4):537–559
Food Production Daily (2010) Japan and China sign food safety pact. http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety/Japan-and-China-sign-food-safety-pact. 1 June 2010.
Shears P (2010) Food fraud – a current issue but an old problem. Br Food J 112(2):198–213
Gossner CM-E et al (2009) The melamine incident: implications for international food and feed safety. Environ Health Perspect 117(12):1803–1808
Grocery Manufacturers Association, AT Kearney (2010) Consumer product fraud: deterrence and detection
Greenhalgh M (2010) Chinese cooking oil found contaminated. Food Safety News, 22 Mar 2010
EU-bound sunflower oil ‘deliberately’ contaminated (2008) EUBusiness.com. Accessed 15 Feb 2010
Patton D (2008) 5 May EU, Ukraine take action against contaminated sunflower oil. FoodProductionDaily.com. Accessed 15 Feb 2010
Yan W (2010) Unsafe ingredient in some flours. China Daily. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-04/08/content_9699679.htm 8 Apr 2010
Layton L (2010) FDA pressured to combat rising ‘food fraud’. Washington Post, 30 Mar 2010
Hennessey M, Kennedy S, Busta F (2010) Demeter’s resilience: an international food defense exercise. J Food Prot 73(7):1353–1356
Nganje W, Richards T, Bravo J, Hu N, Kagan A, Acharya R, Edwards M (2009) Food safety and defense risks in U.S.-Mexico produce trade. Choices, 2nd Quarter 2009 24(2):1–8
Hartnett E, Paoli GM, Schaffner DW (2009) Modeling the public health system response to a terrorist event in the food supply. Risk Anal 29(11):1506–1520
Park J-S, Teren S, Tepp W, Beebe D, Johnson E, Abbott N (2006) Formation of oligopeptide-based polymeric membranes at interfaces between aqueous phases and thermotropic liquid crystals. Chem Mater 18(26):6147–6151
Hilgren J, Swanson K, Diez-Gonzalez F, Cords B (2007) Inactivation of Bacillus anthracis spores by liquid biocides in the presence of food residue. Appl Environ Microbiol 73(20):6370–6377
Venette S, Veil S, Sellnow T (2005) Essential communication resources for combating bioterrorism: some practical and generalizable recommendations. Commun Res Rep 22(1):29–37
Web Resources
Acknowledgement
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Grand Award Number 2007-ST-061-000003-02.
Disclaimer. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Busta, F.F., Kennedy, S.P. (2011). Defending the Safety of the Global Food System from Intentional Contamination in a Changing Market. In: Hefnawy, M. (eds) Advances in Food Protection. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series A: Chemistry and Biology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1100-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1100-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1099-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1100-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)