A panel of food safety professionals has discussed how best to use findings from research to improve food safety.
Speaking during a webinar highlighting the role of scientific advice in protecting public health, Dr. Moez Sanaa, from the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety at the World Health Organization (WHO), said science is more than just publishing studies.
“It starts with generating the evidence, research that is done openly with no hidden agenda. Then comes translation, taking what we know about hazards like norovirus in shellfish and combining it with real-world data, such as how often people eat oysters in a certain country, to understand the risk in that context,” he said.
“The next step is action, creating rules and systems that are flexible enough to handle new things like lab-grown meat or new ways of testing food safety without animals. Finally, it is about trust, sharing data, being honest about uncertainty, and explaining how decisions are made. People need to feel that food safety rules are based on science and not on politics or commercial pressure.
“We heard how innovation demands adapting regulatory frameworks. The takeaway is clear, turning evidence into impact requires more than just good science, it needs systems that can act on it credibly, rapidly, and with public trust.”
Professor William Chen, from Singapore, and Dr. Sarah Cahill, secretary of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, also spoke during the webinar, which launched the Health Talks series as part of World Food Safety Day.
Using science and data effectively
Dr. Pamela Byrne, vice chair of the EFSA Management Board, said science and data are needed to understand the nature of the hazard.
“The question becomes how do we ensure the science and data that we use for risk assessment is generated in a way that can be trusted and is independent? This requires transparency in how it is funded, ensuring it is peer-reviewed and published in open access journals. It is important for regulators to uphold the transparency of the science and data they use to arrive at risk management decisions and that is key to building and maintaining public trust.”
The former Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) CEO also spoke about the need for food consumption data, monitoring and surveillance to understand how people are exposed to different food safety hazards.
“Are regulatory frameworks currently fit for purpose for the future? We’ve spent a long time learning about known risks but those risks are evolving and we are having to update systems. It would be unwise to stand still and not reflect on what are currently the risks and what are the new things that are coming into play that we need to consider.”
Hazard and risk
Professor Samuel Godefroy, of the Université Laval in Canada, said it is important to take into account the likelihood, severity and impact on the population where the hazard is occurring.
“We need data that will allow that determination. We need information on the occurrence of the hazard. The second element is how food is being consumed by individuals. The lack of data and uncertainties will always lead to more conservative decisions and to levels of protection that may not reflect the situation at local level.”
Godefroy said innovation requires investment but this is impeded by uncertainty.
“The only way we can address uncertainty is by creating a framework that is predictable, that has some level of flexibility, but is anchored with risk analysis principles. We need to make sure that risk assessment is not the privilege of the few. That leads me to call for continued investment in capacity building, in risk analysis, and in food control systems to mitigate the tension between innovation and regulation.”
Barbara Gallani, from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), said: “In the past the difference between hazard and risk has been the origin of some misunderstanding. They are difficult to understand, as in many languages the same word indicates hazard and risk and the description needed to explain the two concepts is long and convoluted.
“If you look at Mediterranean countries, the population understands messages about the hazard that is posed by the sun in summer in the middle of the day and the risk associated with exposure without sunscreen or without being in the shade. In Poland, when we did interviews and focus groups they came up with there is a hazard from a poisonous mushroom in the forest but it doesn’t become a risk until it is on your plate and you can’t recognize it.”
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