International Food Supply a Soft Target for Terrorists

Newswise — When contaminated spinach was pulled from store shelves in 2006, the effects were felt across the table and around the world. Three people died and over 200 others fell sick across 26 states.

Across borders and oceans, the Japanese yen and Europe's euro jittered in relation to the U.S. dollar as costs related to the outbreak of foodborne illness mounted to $74 million.

"The global food supply is interconnected," said Marc Ostfield, senior advisor for bioterrorism, biodefense and health security at the U.S. Department of State. Ostfield addressed the Institute of Food Technologists Global Food Safety and Quality Conference here today.

Ostfield noted challenges of an international, safe food supply, which he called a "soft target for terrorists." In recent meetings with worldwide governments "We've been using food defense as a way to open the door to talk about bioterrorism," he said.

Improving food-supply protection gives all governments "a mandate to move forward," he added.

Ostfeld noted progress in 2004 to mandate food-supply protection among the wealthy G8 nations. In 2005, G8 countries were introduced to the latest U.S. techniques for assessing company's vulnerability to intentional contamination, a system called CARVER + Shock.

Building international dialogue accounts for one goal in counter-bioterrorism efforts, as does involving industry in decisions. "(Industry's) buy-in, leadership and partnership are crucial to hardening the soft targets."

A bigger challenge is balancing trade with food safety concerns. "How does enhanced food defense not interfere with growing economies? How can we make them complementary and not contradictory?" he asked.

Sharing information across borders is high on his list to improve food defense, as is strengthening communication between government, private industry and all sectors of U.S. systems. "How can we engage trade, transportation, environment, industry and agriculture to better achieve cross-border communication?"

International food-defense cooperation efforts are bearing fruit, he said.

"We are starting to see the private sector—at least the very largest multi-national firms—begin to incorporate food defense practices around the globe."

The IFT Global Food Safety & Quality conference, and the concurrent IFT Food Nanoscience conference concluded today.

Founded in 1939, and with world headquarters in Chicago, IFT is a not-for-profit international scientific society with 22,000 members working in food science, technology and related professions in industry, academia and government. As the society for food science and technology, IFT brings sound science to the public discussion of food issues. For more on IFT, see IFT.org.