Impact of existing regulatory and non-regulatory risk management systems
The likelihood estimates and resultant risk rankings take into account the effect of the regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms currently in place to manage seafood safety risks. This approach recognises that the epidemiological data and information on the prevalence and concentration of hazards in seafood are gathered in an environment where those existing risk management mechanisms apply. It also allows some conclusions to be made about the effectiveness of those measures and may point to inadequacies or gaps in the current system.
It is also recognised that changes in management of public health risks associated with seafood have recently taken place, either in response to incremental advances in awareness of food safety issues or in reaction to failures in the previous management systems.
The impact of these changes may not be fully gauged by assessing the burden of food-borne illness. Epidemiological data are an historical record and may not accurately reflect recent changes in the regulatory environment. For example, the effectiveness of the partial, yet ongoing, implementation of a shellfish safety program in New South Wales can only be completely validated over a period of time.
Such ongoing changes in risk management systems introduce a further degree of uncertainty into the final relative risk rankings generated in this report. They also demonstrate the need for risk assessment to be an ongoing, dynamic process, responsive to changes in circumstance and the availability of data.
