The Dangers of Food in the Global Village - Research Paper Example

June 22, The Dangers of Food in the Global Village: The Possibility of a Real-Life Contagion and How to Prevent It The film Contagion, directed by Steven Soderbergh, illustrates the vastness of interconnections across the world through the vibrant life of the global food system, as well as the vastness of deaths that arise from a virus that also spreads from the same system that gives life. The film is not far from reality because of the chilling spread of similar viruses, internationally and nationally, through foodborne diseases (FBD) and viruses transmitted throughout the global food supply chain system (Hanson et al.). Some of these diseases and viruses are the mad cow disease, H5N1, H7N9, Norovirus Salmonella, Clostridium perfringens, Campylobacter spp., and Staphylococcus aureus, among many others (“Avian Influenza”; “Foodborne Illness”; “Questions and Answers”). Kuchenmüller et al. supported the World Health Organization (WHO) Initiative of understanding the morbidity and mortality effects of international foodborne diseases and they noted that the latter have become an increasing global burden because of the complexity of understanding their concepts (i.e. concepts of food safety and risk assessment of biological hazards), causes, and pathways and finding appropriate immediate and long-term solutions. The paper defines food safety and risk management of food safety, identifies problems in the monitoring and determination of problem-response paths of the national and global food system, proposes solutions to improve it, and handles objections to the solutions. The current weaknesses in national authority and lack of multilateral agreements and effective international mechanisms that ensure and respond to issues of global food safety endanger consumers who access the global food system, so these agreements and improvements in international and national capacities are fundamental to increasing food safety. There is no single definition of food safety, even among international healthcare organizations that deal with it, so it is important to define it to identify emerging issues connected to it and to find different measures and strategies in managing it in the global food supply chain system. International and national healthcare organizations do not offer an exact definition of food safety, although they underscore its importance to the health and the integrity of the international food system (“Foodborne Illness”; “Questions and Answers”). Food safety, as a concept, is generally connected to food quality and security. In particular, it includes “the conditions and practices that preserve the quality of food to prevent contamination and foodborne illnesses” (Heit). This definition supports the intended definition of the paper because it integrates conditions and practices, however, it does not highlight the role of laws, agreements, and policies in the process of food safety. Juanjuan Sun provides another definition of food safety. He defines food safety as “assurance that the product will not cause harm to the consumer when it is prepared and/or eaten according to its intended use” (86). His definition is open to ambiguous interpretations, however, because it does not determine the agencies/organizations/sectors that are responsible for food safety. The definition of food safety for the paper is it refers to the national and international collaboration among diverse public and private sectors in ensuring that the conditions and practices of the entire global food chain system ensures the quality of food to prevent contamination and foodborne illnesses. Aside from defining food safety, a number of scholars underscored the importance of defining risk analysis or assessment of food safety because it impacts how countries and international agencies will assess and respond to these risks. Oliver Serf questions the usual definition of risk assessment in the context of food safety. The definition of risk assessment that he used refers to the “evaluation of the likelihood and the biological and economic consequences of entry, establishment, or spread of a pathogenic event within the territory of an importing country” (Serf 811). The definition has the strengths of including biological and economic dimensions of risk assessment, but it lacks further inclusion of the severity of health effects. Serf adds that risk assessment must include the probability and severity of the health outcomes of the pathogenic outbreak for animals and human alike (811), and this definition makes more sense the former because it allows public and private agencies and the general public alike to prepare for widespread consequences of foodborne diseases. Sandra Hoffmann and William Harder provide one more definition of risk analysis through the use of systematic tools. They stress that risk management involves “a set of systematic methods for assessing and managing hazards” to food safety (Hoffmann and Harder 7). This definition does not meet the needs of the paper for including widespread effects in the assessment process, although it does highlight the use of scientific principles and methods. Risk assessment in food safety entails the evaluation of the likelihood and the biological and economic consequences of entry, establishment, or spread of a pathogenic event in countries and across regions to human and animal lives and involves the use of systematic methods for assessing and managing hazards. After discussing the definitions of food safety and risk assessment in food safety, the paper proceeds to determining the problems in the monitoring and determination of problem-response paths of the national and global food system. Economic globalization provides resources, systems, and technologies that transfer food from producers to consumers, but national and international food systems and laws have a number of flaws that result to insecurities in food safety. Tamás Nepusz, Andrea Petróczi, and Declan P. Naughton created a user-friendly analytical tool that employed network approaches for instant customized analysis of food alert patterns in the European dataset from the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed. They analyzed data from alert logs from January 2003 to August 2008 to analyze trends and to forecast potential effects of interventions. Their program determined that Iran, China and Turkey are the main transgressors because they had the highest number of alerts, although the largest impact comes from China (Nepusz et al. 3-4). Their study shows how economic globalization also threatens food security because these interconnections become pathways for foodborne illnesses. Aside from the impact of economic globalization on the global food system, some scholars determined weaknesses in regulatory agencies that endanger food safety. Ching-Fu Lin has conducted several studies on the limitations of regulatory bodies, specifically, problems of law enforcement in China, a major global food exporter (653 “Global Food Safety”); structural fragmentation in the U.S. through lack of coordination and sharing of resources among the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other related federal and state agencies (654 “Global Food Safety”); EU member states are inconsistent in their implementation and enforcement of the General Food Law (657 “Global Food Safety”); and developing countries lack scientific and regulatory capabilities and resources (658 “Global Food Safety”). The article underlines the importance of national and global responses and preparedness to an urgent issue as food safety. In another article, Lin asserts that there is no strategy that addresses food safety at the international level. Despite the existence of the WHO, the World Trade Organization, and Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex), Lin laments the absence of effective cooperative and strategic approaches that can deal with the spread of food safety issues across the world (700). These articles underscore that the existence of national and international health and business organizations are not enough to ensure world food safety, and that they should work together in finding immediate and lasting solutions to diverse threats to global food safety. After exploring factors that lead to world food safety issues, the next point is to provide solutions, starting with the basic necessities for national capacities in food safety regulation. Some scholars agree that a healthy legal system with critical rules and institutions is a precondition for effective and efficient food safety regulation, nationally and internationally (Cazala 540; Lin 657 “Global Food Safety”). Julien Cazala suggests the use of the Precautionary Principle which refers that introducing new products in the markets that have unknown or disputed safety will be banned (540). The principle is important in providing burden of proof for safety on corporations and to asserting the responsibility of national health and food agencies in ensuring caution against harmful food elements. Moreover, Lin recommends a central agency that is in charge of national food safety and coordination with international food/health agencies. She argues that a “single, centralized authority charged with food safety regulation, including overseeing standard-setting, monitoring, enforcement, and risk management, is most preferable” (685 “Global Food Safety”). Lin’s proposal is important because it shows the role of single agency in connecting the efforts of national public and private sectors in promoting food safety and addressing emerging and future food safety problems. These recommendations underline that national capacities are fundamental necessities to the pursuit of food safety in the global context. Whereas developed nations have distinct competencies, financial and technological advantages, developing countries grapple with deficiencies on these dimensions, so they need both national and international support in developing their core capacities in addressing food safety. On the one hand, developing countries should find ways to respond to their delimitations without depending on developed countries because the latter, though financially more capable, also have resource problems (DeWaal 931). Lin underscores that developing countries should focus on core competencies which pertain to the “process by which individuals, groups, organizations, institutions and societies increase their abilities to perform core functions, solve problems, and set and achieve objectives” (687 “Global Food Safety”). In food safety, the main priorities for developing countries are “personnel training; organizational structures...; and technical and financial resources so that all the relevant systems can perform their core functions in a sustainable manner” (Lin 687 “Global Food Safety”). These recommendations can help developing countries determine what they need to improve to heighten food safety levels in their jurisdictions. On the other hand, developing countries also need some form of international support. Developed countries can provide technical, financial, and information-sharing assistance to developing countries (Lin 687 “Global Food Safety”). Works Cited “Avian Influenza A (H7N9) Virus.” United States of America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 20 June 2014. . Cazala, Julien. “Food Safety and the Precautionary Principle: The Legitimate Moderation of Community Courts.” European Law Journal 10.5 (2004): 539-554. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 June 2014. Cerf, Oliver. “Current definitions of risk for food safety and animal health allow risk assessments to provide substantially different outcomes.” Risk Analysis 28.4 (2008): 811-813. Publisher: PsycINFO. Web. 20 June 2014. Contagion. Dir. Steven Soderbergh. Perf. Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law. Warner Brothers, 2011. Film. DeWaal, Caroline Smith. “Food Safety and Security: What Tragedy Teaches Us about Our 100-Year-Old Food Laws.” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 40.4 (2007): 921-935. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 June 2014. “Foodborne Illness, Foodborne Disease, (sometimes called “Food Poisoning”).” United States of America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 12 Feb. 2014. Web. 20 June 2014. < http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/facts.html#mostcommon>. Hanson, Laura A., Zahn, Elizabeth A., Wild, Sommer R., Döpfer, Dörte, Scott, James and Claudia Stein. “Estimating Global Mortality from Potentially Foodborne Diseases: An Analysis Using Vital Registration Data.” Population Health Metrics 10.5 (2012). Web. 20 June 2014. . Heit, Jeffrey. “Food Safety.” University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), 2012. < http://umm.edu/health/medical/ency/articles/food-safety>. Hoffmann, Sandra, and William Harder. “Health Matrix: Food Safety And Risk Governance In Globalized Markets.” Journal of Law-Medicine 20.1 (2010): 5-54. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 June 2014. Kuchenmüller, T., Hird, S., Stein, C., Kramarz, P., Nanda, A., and A.H. Havelaar. “Estimating the Global Burden of Foodborne Diseases - A Collaborative Effort.” Eurosurveillance 14.18 (2009). Web. 20 June 2014. . Lin, Ching-Fu. “Global Food Safety: Exploring Key Elements for an International Regulatory Strategy.” Virginia Journal of International Law 51.3 (2011): 637-695. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 June 2014. ---. “SPS-plus and Bilateral Treaty Network: A "Global" Solution to the Global Food-Safety Problem?” Wisconsin International Law Journal 29.4 (2012): 694-734. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 June 2014. Nepusz, Tamás, Petróczi, Andrea, and Declan P. Naughton. “Network Analytical Tool for Monitoring Global Food Safety Highlights China.” PLoS ONE 4.8 (2009): 1-7. “Questions and Answers: Foodborne Disease Burden.” World Health Organization (WHO), n.d. Web. 20 June 2014. . Sun, Juanjuan. “The Evolving Appreciation of Food Safety.” European Food & Feed Law Review 7.2 (2012): 84-90. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 June 2014. Read More