Contamination of food

Rest facilities should be provided in readily accessible places. To avoid contamination of food, or accidental ingestion of chemicals, these should include facilities to eat meals in a separate location. 

Despite the use of 2.5 million tons of pesticide worldwide, approximately 35% of potential crop production is lost to pests. An additional 20% is lost to pests that attack the food post-harvest. Thus, nearly one-half of all potential world food supply is lost to pests despite human efforts to prevent this loss. Pesticides, in addition to saving about 10% of world food supply, cause serious environmental and public health problems. These problems include human pesticide poisonings fish and bird kills destruction of beneficial natural enemies pesticide resistance contamination of food and water with pesticide residues and inadvertent destruction of some crops. 

Hepatitis A virus (HAV) Naked icosahedra 27 nm in diameter Responsible for infectious hepatitis spread by the oro-faecal route especially in children. Also associated with sewage contamination of food or water supplies... 

Reference materials for radioisotopes have mainly been used for purposes relating to nuclear and radiation safety. Historically, the development of such materials first arose from the need to assess the risk to human populations caused by worldwide contamination of food and the environment as a consequence of atomic bomb testing - particularly from bombs exploded in the atmosphere. Even now, although atmospheric testing ceased many years ago, the residues from these tests still remain the main source of radionuclides such as Cs and °Sr in the global environment (though locally, other sources may be more important in some countries). 

There are many peer-review publications reporting NoV outbreaks due to food and water. In spite of a recognized publication bias toward these outbreaks, there is a consensus that the scientific literature imder-estimates the contribution of NoV to food and waterborne disease (Efall et al., 2005 Hoffmann et al., 2007 O Brien et al., 2006). Source contamination of food and water is clearly implicated in NoV outbreaks around the world. 

The plant inspection program of the American baking industry has shown that 80% of sanitation problems can be avoided by good housekeeping. Proper use of residual spray material, such as DDT and chlordan, will control casual invaders—roaches, ant, flies, silver-fish, dermestids, fungus beetles, and meal worms— without contamination of food products. 

The ancient Egyptians used lead as early as the fourth millennium b.c.e. Later, the Romans developed and expanded the use of lead during the Roman Empire to impressive levels, so lead is often referred to as the Roman metal. The large-scale use of the metal most probably caused considerable environmental contamination of food, drink, and the atmosphere (Nriagu 1983). 

Contamination of food crops by radiocerium in fallout from nuclear weapons tests has been extensively documented in the worldwide literature (Chhabra and Hukkoo, 1962 Merk, 1967 Michelson et al., 1962 Nezu et al., 1962 Sutton and Dwyer, 1964). The 144Ce concentrations in spinach leaves and radish roots in Japan in 1960 were within a factor of two of the respective "Sr concentrations (Nezu et al., 1962). 

An alternative packaging is the combination of food-packaging materials with antimicrobial substances to control microbial surface contamination of foods. For both migrating and nonmigrating antimicrobial materials, intensive contact between the food product and packaging material is required and therefore potential food applications include especially vacuum or skin-packaged products (Vermeiren and others 2002). 

Several countries have stockpiled a limited number of toxins. Their use on the battlefield has been alleged (e.g., Laos, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan) but not documented to the extent that it is universally accepted. Toxins have been used for political assassinations (e.g., 1978 murder of Georgi Markov with ricin) and terrorists have threatened the use of toxins, usually through contamination of food or water supplies. 

Field First Aid In a terrorist attack with Q fever, the primary threat is dissemination of aerosol, or contamination of food. Acute Q fever can appear to develop as an undifferentiated febrile illness, as an atypical pneumonia, or as a rapidly progressive pneumonia. 

Health hazards to humans by sludge-borne organics result from contamination of food for human consumption. The main pathways... 

There are two principal routes by which the actinides can enter the body uptake can occur either via inhalation or by oral uptake as contaminants of food. However, as both routes of uptake require the actinides to cross a variety of cellular barriers it is necessary to be familiar with some of the chemistry of these elements. 

In general, mycotoxin contamination of foods and feeds and the associated problems are primarily influenced by the location of production, storage, and marketing. The Aspergillus species that produce mycotoxins are more common in the warmer, subtropical and tropical areas than in the temperate areas of the world. However, stringent government regulations for mycotoxins and risk analyses are more common in temperate areas than in the warmer areas of the world, where it becomes both a health and a financial problem. 

Castle, L., Sharman, M. and Gilbert, J. (1988b). Gas chromatographic-mass spectro-metric determination of epoxidized soybean oil contamination of foods by migration from plastic packaging, /. Assoc. Ojf. Anal. Chem., 71, 6, 1183-1186. 

Contamination of food with heavy metals is constantly reduced due to the intensification of technical controls in industry, which is the primary producer of contaminants found in soil and aquatic environments. 

This is confusing. Why don t risk assessors simply decide what level of exposure is safe for each chemical, and risk managers simply put into effect mechanisms to ensure that industry reaches the safe level Why should different sources of risk be treated differently Why apply a no risk standard to certain substances (e.g., those intentionally introduced into food, such as aspartame) and an apparently more lenient risk-henefit standard to unwanted contaminants of food such as PCBs, methylmercury, and aflatoxins (which the FDA applies under another section of food law) Why allow technological limitations to influence any decision about health What is this risk-henefit balancing nonsense Aren t some of these statutes simply sophisticated mechanisms to allow polluters to expose people to risk ... 

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