Biosecurity, Food Adulteration, and Food Supply protection

Question 1

what is the legal definition of food adulteration?

Answer 1

food adulteration is used to mean that a food product fails to meet legal standards

Question 2

what are the forms of food adulteration? (4)

Answer 2

• adding an ingredient of lesser value (melamine in milk)
• adding color or flavour to mask a defect
• using a species of lesser value (cow milk used to dilute goat milk, horse meat instead of cow meat)
• using an ingredient from n “off-label” geographic location (i.e. using Asian oysters, but selling the oysters as Canadian oysters)

Question 3

definition fo food security

Answer 3

food security is defined as access to sufficient calories on a daily basis

Question 4

where is the possibility of becoming ill form food of more significant concern, developed countries or developing countries? why?

Answer 4

in the developed world because there is relative abundance of food which can drive the emergence of other food issues such as new foodborne illnesses

Question 5

what is the issue with “convenience foods” in regards to food safety?

Answer 5

the desire for quick-to-prepare or ready-to-eat foods has resulted in consumers being exposed to a broader array of potentially contaminated foods from around the globe
(i.e. Vibrio vulnificus does not grow in cold Canadian waters, but if raw oysters are bought from the Gulf of Mexico there could be cases recorded in Canada)

Question 6

why is food safety a food security issue?

Answer 6

Food safety is a food security issue since contaminated food cannot be eaten and may threaten the food supply

Question 7

what is food bioterrorism?

Answer 7

Food bioterrorism is intentional contamination of food for economic gains or to cause harm

Question 8

what has been put in place to mitigate food bioterrorism?

Answer 8

several safeguards are added to decrease the chances of tampering

Question 9

what has been put in place to control traditional biological contaminants of concern for food safety

Answer 9

the hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) system

Question 10

what generally causes foodborne illnesses?

Answer 10

system failure that enables the introduction, growth, and survival of the contaminant to reach levels high enough to cause harm

Question 11

what is the approach to minimize risk of intentional contamination?

Answer 11

evaluate the degree to which the intervention reduces the vulnerability to each system within the overall food supply infrastructure:

1. analyse the vulnerability of an operation within the food system
2. deploy an intervention
3. analyze the vulnerability again

Question 12

what is the limitation of the approach to intentional food contamination risk management?

Answer 12

it does not address if the intervention is economically justified

Question 13

what are the 2 sets of risk management tools to help with risk management of intentional food contamination?

Answer 13

• operational risk management (ORM)

- critically, accessibility, recuperability, vulnerability, effect, recognizability (CARVER)

Question 14

what is operational risk management ORM?

Answer 14

a function of the severity of the failure and the probability of the failure

Question 15

what are the 5 steps of ORM for identifying and managing risk?

Answer 15

1. identify hazards
2. assess the potential consequences of the hazards
3. determine which risks to manage with which interventions
4. implement the interventions
5. assess the success of the interventions

Question 16

what are the two scales used for operational risk management?

Answer 16

severity and probability

Question 17

what is the difference between the severity scale and the probability scale of ORM

Answer 17

severity measures the degree of impact this could have on the population (morbidity/mortality) where as probability is measures how vulnerable the system is

Question 18

what should be known when using the general approach of ORM?

Answer 18

the general chanracteristsics of the food system of concern: how much of a contaminant could be added to a product, and if there are potential mitigation steps downstream such as thermal treatments or filtration

Question 19

what is the general approach of ORM?

Answer 19

• select the food system(S) of concern and identify points of vulnerability and then conduct a severity vs. probability assessment for the vulnerability
• once intervention efforts take place to mitigate risk, the ORM process stats again to evaluate the success of the intervention

Question 20

what is CARBER+Schock?

Answer 20

a process used to evaluate the vulnerability of a food operation system by evaluating each node within the system

Question 21

what are the 7 elements of CARVER+Shock?

Answer 21

1. critically
2. accessibility
3. recuperability
4. vulnerability
5. effect
6. recognizability
7. shock

Question 22

what is the “critically” element of CARVER+Shock??

Answer 22

The degree to which public health or economic consequences are nationally significant

Question 23

what is the “accessibility” element of CARVER+Shock??

Answer 23

Physical access to the target

Question 24

what is the “recuperability” element of CARVER+Shock??

Answer 24

The overall system resiliency as measured in the time required to bring the system back into operation

Question 25

what is the “vulnerability” element of CARVER+Shock??

Answer 25

Attack feasibility as viewed by the potential for a successful attack

Question 26

what is the “effect” element of CARVER+Shock??

Answer 26

Direct losses from a food attack as defined by the fraction of the food system that has been impacted by the attack

Question 27

what is the “recognizability” element of CARVER+Shock??

Answer 27

The ease of target identification, or the amount of specialized knowledge needed to identify the point for intentional contamination

Question 28

what is the “shock” element of CARVER+Shock??

Answer 28

The combined health, economic, and psychological impacts of a successful attack

Question 29

what are the 2 first steps of CARVER+Shock?

Answer 29

1. define a scale so that points can be assigned to high-risk nodes, and low-risk nodes
2. evaluate the food facility and identify unique nodes, and each node when taken in total should represent the entire production system

Question 30

areas in the processing facility that could be vulnerable to contamination are generally ….

Answer 30

restricted access

Question 31

what is the approach for evaluating detection and diagnostic system intervention options?

Answer 31

Detect to Prevent, Detect to Protect, and Detect to Recover

Question 32

what is “detect to prevent”?

Answer 32

overall strategy that enables positive confirmation of contamination before the finished food item leaves the facility in order to eliminate any chance of public health concerns

Question 33

what is “detect to protect”?

Answer 33

strives to prevent any public health consequences but takes place after the food has left the factory. If detection can prevent the sale of contaminated food, then public health and economic consequences are averted

Question 34

what is “detect to recover”?

Answer 34

a response strategy to enable rapid identification of intentional contamination in order to quickly contain the event and minimize the impact. Here the public health and economic impacts are significant, but in many ways this is how our system works