Microbial Food Safety Risk Assessment at the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition: From Concept to Reality
Robert L. Buchanan, Ph.D., Senior Science Advisor, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Washington, DC 20204
The FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition has a long history of using risk assessment techniques as a tool to help ensure that its decisions related to the chemical safety of foods are based on the best scientific information available. Historically, equivalent techniques were not available for food safety concerns related to infectious microorganisms. However, as a result of recent scientific advances and the support of the National Food Safety Initiative, microbial food safety risk assessments have gone from a concept to an increasingly important regulatory tool in less than 5 years. The CFSAN is learning rapidly how this new tool can be most effectively be used, and how the results of the assessments should be interpreted and effectively communicated to interested parties.