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The First Five years

Science Group – robust science and risk assessment

Steve Hathaway, Director: Science Group

NZFSA is committed to developing food safety programmes that are based on robust science and risk assessment. In its first five years the Science Group (formerly the Programme Development Group) has developed as a centre of excellence in risk assessment of microbiological and chemical hazards.

The Science Group is responsible for:

• developing the NZFSA Science Group Strategy and Business Plan, which helps guide NZFSA’s standard development and other risk management activities

• scoping and managing extensive contracts with external science providers

• providing international representation on technical issues.

Developing a science strategy

The Group has completed a new strategy for 2007–2011 and feedback on this has been sought from stakeholder groups. Based on the Science Strategy for the preceding years and the outcomes achieved, the new strategy identifies strategic goals and objectives for the upcoming years. It establishes an operational framework for the provision of scientific information and risk assessments to the different businesses within NZFSA as well as external stakeholders. It also encompasses the global context of contemporary food control and regulation.

Centre of excellence in risk assessment

After the signing of the WTO SPS Agreement in 1996, there was a world-wide move towards food safety programmes based on risk assessment. This is a demanding technical discipline and the Group has built up a centre of excellence of international standing. One of its greatest challenges is to ensure its capability can be grown to match the demand for the specialised work involved.

Using risk assessment, NZFSA has been able to take maximum advantage of technical advances when establishing new standards while at the same time ensuring that consumers are protected. NZFSA has also used risk assessment to successfully argue the equivalence of New Zealand food safety standards in the face of trade-restrictive standards imposed on our food products by importing countries.

A risk assessment for unpasteurised milk and dairy products made from unpasteurised milk provides an excellent example of the way the SPS Agreement can open the way for wider choice while protecting consumer safety. This work was initiated by an application to directly import Roquefort cheese – an unpasteurised milk product. Under the SPS Agreement, New Zealand is obliged to provide market access unless there are scientifically defensible reasons for declining access. In 2007, following the risk assessment directed by the Group, direct imports of soft raw milk cheeses from the European Community were approved, with provisions for consumer education to protect vulnerable groups such as those with compromised immune systems.

Another significant risk assessment is the one incorporated in the Campylobacter in Poultry Risk Management Strategy. The risk assessment has identified points in the chain from processing to consumer where there is high potential to significantly reduce levels of contamination by the pathogen. Working with the poultry industry, NZFSA is aiming for a 50 percent reduction in human cases of Campylobacter within five years. Reducing bacterial contamination of carcasses by up to 90 percent, and doing this as early as possible in the processing chain, is a key part of this strategy which will be phased in to allow the industry time to change processing systems. Consumers also have an important part to play in achieving the strategy’s targets. Education initiatives will continue to stress the need for proper food handling and hygiene in the home.

Other recent risk assessments include:

• exposure pathways for foodborne human salmonellosis in New Zealand

• Salmonella Brandenburg in sheep meat.

Building capability

The Group has built staffing resources and expertise as its role as a centre of scientific excellence in food safety and risk assessment has expanded. At the end of its first five years the group is 12 strong. With the exception of the contracts manager, all are scientists – six of them PhDs. The Group also supports a PhD student whose work is contributing to the operational research programme.

The Group’s capability is also considerably leveraged by collaboration with its counterparts in overseas food safety agencies. Tapping into this expertise helps keep New Zealand at the forefront of food safety science.

The immediate priority for the Group is consolidation of risk assessment expertise and increased networking with external science providers so as to strengthen national scientific capability and collaboration. The range of food safety issues that need scientific evaluation continues to expand, and the Group must be proactive in facilitating a risk-based approach to the regulatory responses that will be required.

Science contracts with external providers

The ever-increasing need for scientific inputs can only be partially met within NZFSA. As the period has progressed, the Group has developed a more strategic approach to the procurement of research, with a greater emphasis on contracting and joint ventures. For example, in 2007 a three-year, $735,000 Campylobacter research programme was announced. The work will be done in conjunction with the Ministry for the Environment, and with the collaboration of Massey University, Environmental Science & Research (ESR) and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). The Group routinely scopes and manages contracts with ESR worth approximately $2.5 million per annum.

Currently, more than 40 external science projects are run annually by the Group. Along with extensive scientific work, these provide a continual stream of new knowledge for risk management of hazards in the food supply. The projects, some of which are co-funded by industry sector groups, are contracted using an open and consultative process.

Codex involvement

As a major exporter of food, it is vital that New Zealand’s regulators stay abreast of all international developments in food safety and ensure that this country is well positioned as a significant exporter – and importer – of food products. To this end, the Group has a strong record of engagement in the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) and was a major contributor to a wide range of recently developed international standards. Without such representation, New Zealand interests could easily be subsumed by those of other countries.

As a further contribution to regulation of the international trade in food, NZFSA chairs two of the major standard-setting Codex committees: the Codex Committee on Meat Hygiene, which completed its most recent round of work in 2005, and the Codex Committee on Milk and Milk Products.

Meat hygiene programme

Improving meat hygiene has been an important activity and the Group has been actively involved in scientific investigation of all aspects of meat hygiene. This programme has led to a major overhaul of regulatory requirements in New Zealand and also to the development of a risk management framework that is now the standard international approach for evaluating regulatory aspects of food safety. The Group publishes many scientific papers in this area and is recognised worldwide for advances in managing food safety risks that may arise from meat.

National Microbiological Database

One of the features of New Zealand’s food regulatory environment is the use of monitoring to provide data upon which sound risk management decisions can be based. In a world first, the group has developed a comprehensive National Microbiological Database (NMD) for meat. Since it was established in 2004, the NMD has provided a continuous stream of information on the food safety status of all major classes of meat produced in New Zealand and provides the opportunity to regularly rank premises against each other in terms of food safety performance.

The NMD has been used on a number of occasions to demonstrate the low level of contamination on fresh meat produced under New Zealand conditions. Further, detailed nationwide data available from the NMD has allowed the Science Group to carry out sophisticated analyses which have demonstrated that additional and costly microbiological monitoring required by importing countries is not necessary. This has led to equivalence agreements with importing countries that have subsequently saved New Zealand’s food export industry significant sums of money.

Beginning with sheep and beef, the scope of the programme has now been expanded to include poultry, deer, goats, emus and ostriches. As the data builds over time it is starting to reveal long-term trends – a very useful source of data for establishing outcome-driven public health goals.

Chemical residues and contaminants

There is now widespread acceptance that microbiological pathogens present a greater relative food safety risk to the general population than do chemical residues and contaminants. The five-yearly Total Diet Survey, next due in 2010, shows that the exposure of New Zealanders to chemical residues and contaminants is extremely low. The survey assesses dietary exposure to chemical residues, contaminant elements and selected nutrients from about 120 representative foods across the average diets of different age-sex groups within the New Zealand population.

Notwithstanding the low relative risk, chemical residues and contaminants always have the potential for adverse health effects if intakes are high enough, and there are also potential ramifications for trade access if minimum limits are exceeded. NZFSA maintains a world-leading monitoring programme so that consumers and trading partners can receive meaningful assurances about chemical food safety.

Recent science programmes

Good quality data on foodborne illness trends is essential if NZFSA is to effectively measure the success of food safety measures. The Ministry of Health has primary responsibility for this data, but the Science Group is helping fund improvements in the quality of the information provided – for example, better data about food sources associated with outbreaks of foodborne campylobacteriosis. The Group has appointed a medical specialist to focus on human health surveillance projects.

Health risks associated with the mercury content of fish in New Zealand are being investigated. The health benefits of eating fish are being studied in relation to the degree of risk posed by mercury to vulnerable subgroups in the population.

A risk model has been constructed which focuses on the Salmonella contamination risks associated with the importation of a range of food types. This will be used to inform the regulatory system being developed by NZFSA for imported foods. The model ranks the relative risks from different countries, the risks of importing antibiotic-resistant Salmonella strains, and the risks of importing exotic strains via non-food pathways such as animal feedstuffs or humans.