Dar seafood ppp standard

Prevalence and concentration data

Data from monitoring studies of hazards in seafood were used to demonstrate a clear link between particular hazards and certain seafood commodities. For some commodity/hazard combinations (for example, mercury in finfish, L. monocytogenes in cooked crustacea), there have been sufficient studies conducted to provide a clear picture of the extent of contamination in products available in Australia. For other combinations there is little Australian prevalence and concentration data to draw on.

Other information used to assess the likelihood of adverse health effects included data on the prevalence and level of hazards in imported seafood (for example, data from the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service Imported Food Inspection Program testing regime) and a database of Australian food recalls maintained by FSANZ.
Information from these sources was taken as being indicative of the potential for the seafood commodity/hazard combination to cause adverse health effects. This type of data is treated cautiously, however, as food standards are conservatively set to protect public health and safety. Therefore, failures to meet regulatory limits may not necessarily indicate the presence of a hazard at a concentration likely to present an immediate risk to public health. However, while the presence of a hazard does not necessarily imply an immediate threat of illness in a consumer of that product, other factors may apply, leading to a public health and safety risk.
The use of such routine inspection data also has other limitations. Not all testing is random, and sample size is often quite low compared to the total food volume. The data therefore have the potential to be biased and can become insensitive for low incidence pathogens, introducing uncertainty which can affect the validity of conclusions based upon them.