Food supply contamination

Kanamycin and another archaic member of the aminoglycoside antibiotic group, paromomycin (Humatin) finds some oral use for the suppression of gut flora. Paromomycin is also used for the oral treatment of amoebic dysentery. Amoebas are persistent pathogens causing chronic diarrhea and are acquired most frequently by travelers who consume food supplies contaminated with human waste. 

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. 

Fusarium moniliforme sya verticillioides causes the so-called ear rot disease in maize and produces fumonisin B, (IB,), one of the most frequently detected mycotoxins in the food supply chain worldwide (Steyn, 1995). FBi can inhibit lipid formation, particularly in the liver. Fumonisins have been detected and investigated only relatively recently. Several structurally related forms of fumonisins (FBS) have been associated with human cancer (e.g. FB with oesophageal cancer) as well as with a host of problems in livestock fed with FB -contaminated feed (D Mello, 2003 Benbrook, 2005). 

Otters (Lutra lutra) were found only on a single unpolluted tributary of a river system contaminated by zinc mine drainage waste, suggesting that a contaminated food supply may be responsible for avoiding otherwise suitable habitat (Mason and Macdonald 1988). 

Improving nutrition is essentially a process of encouraging people to make healthful choices that improve their well-being (Wansink, 2005). What happens, however, when we believe contamination, terrorism, or a genetic incidence threatens a part of the food supply Sometimes crises influence the recall, redesign, and communication efforts of individual companies (such as Tylenol, Perrier, Pilgrim s Pride). Others, such as the threat of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE) in beef can compromise an entire industry. 

Food Our food supply is produced using, and is contaminated with, pesticides. Artificial sweeteners, flavors, and colors are used. Mercury contaminates some fish. 

Much of our food supply depends on the use of pesticides. Our households, schools and workplaces contain numerous chemicals that are potentially hazardous. The laptop computer essential for writing this book contains thousands of different chemicals. The manufacture of many of the items we depend upon and their subsequent disposal can create additional hazards. There are numerous examples around the world of contaminated areas that are potentially hazardous to animals, plants, and humans. 

Polybrominated Biphenyls. Analysis of semen from 41 male residents of Michigan who lived on PBB-contaminated farms or who had bought food directly from such farms and 11 males who were employed in a PBB manufacturing company revealed no abnonnalities in tlie distribution of sperm counts, spenn motility, or sperm morphology, compared w ith an analysis of semen from 52 unexposed men (Rosenman et al. 1979). Tills study was conducted in 1977, 4 years after initial contamination of Michigan s food supply, and would not have detected an earlier response that was subsequently reversed. PBBs were detected (detection limit of 0.2 ppb) in tlie serum of 1 of the 52 unexposed men and in all of the exposed men however, individual or mean values for PBB levels were not reported. 

There has been an increasing worldwide public outcry to know what residues and contaminants are in the food supply, and a demand that food be free of residues that could have an impact on the public health. A simplistic but often voiced concept is that edible animal products should be only consumed when all administered drugs and drug-related residues have been totally eliminated. For some time in the past, this concept seemed to guarantee the highest degree of food safety as animal products destined for human consumption were found to be free of drug residues by the analytical methods applied at that time. 

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