Dar seafood ppp standard

Attachment 10

A Risk Ranking of Seafood in Australia (February 2005)

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Acknowledgements
Food Standards Australia New Zealand gratefully acknowledges the support and assistance many organisations and individuals provided in the preparation of this report.

Special thanks are extended to Craig Dalton, Janet Li and Martyn Kirk for epidemiological data; to Tom Black, Ian McKay and Kate Hutchison for guidance during development of the risk ranking tool; and to members of the Seafood Standard Development Committee and the Risk Assessment Working Group for their ongoing advice and direction during the risk ranking activity.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand is grateful for advice and guidance provided by domestic and international peer reviewers. The early advice provided by Dr Tom McMeekin and Dr Tom Ross of the Australian Food Safety Centre of Excellence was most valuable. In the final stages of drafting the report, the support and direction provided by Dr Alan Reilly (Food Safety Authority of Ireland) and Dr Jeffrey Farber (Bureau of Microbial Hazards, Food Directorate, Health Canada) was highly appreciated.

Glossary

ANZFA	Australia New Zealand Food Authority
ASQAP	Australian Shellfish Quality Assurance Program
bw	bodyweight
cfu	colony forming units
Codex	Codex Alimentarius Commission
EHEC	Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli
EIEC	Enteroinvasive Escherichia coli
EPEC	Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli
ETEC	Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli
FAO	Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FDA	Food and Drug Administration
FSANZ	Food Standards Australia New Zealand
g, ng, g, mg, kg	gram, nanogram, microgram, milligram, kilogram
HACCP	Hazard analysis critical control point
IAEA	International Atomic Energy Agency
ICMSF	International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods
JECFA	Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives
l, ml	Litres, millilitres
MU	mouse units – the unit of measure described in Recommended procedures for examination of seawater and shellfish, Irwin N. (ed.) 4th Ed. 1970. American Public Health Association Inc.
nm	nanometre
ppt, ppm, ppb	parts per thousand, parts per million, parts per billion
PTDI	Provisional tolerable daily intake
PTWI	Provisional tolerable weekly intake
RNA	Ribonucleic acid
WHO	World Health Organization

Summary

This report provides the scientific basis for the development of a Primary Production and Processing Standard for seafood. The report qualitatively ranks the public health and safety risk posed by consumption of seafood in Australia. Overall the risks from seafood are usually well managed and are therefore considered relatively low.

The risk ranking compares the relative risks associated with the wide variety of seafood commodities available in Australia – domestically produced and imported. It takes into account the chemical and biological food safety hazards potentially present, and assigns each commodity or group of commodities to a broad relative risk category: low, medium or high. There are only a very small number of products that may present relatively high public health and safety risks.
The ranking brings together the available scientific and technical information on food safety hazards in seafood and identifies seafood commodities of higher priority for the development of risk management strategies in the context of the Primary Production and Processing Standard for seafood.