Academia Focus Group Session
Focus Group Coordinator: Steve Anderson, Georgetown University
Our focus group was comprised of approximately 15 individuals from academia or related association. However one participant was affiliated with the Department of Defense on matters unrelated to food safety.
- When it comes to food safety what do you worry about?
- Politics of decision making
- Myself and my family
- Lack of cooperation between Government, Academia, and Industry
- Emerging Pathogens and Toxins
- Reliability of Data Sources used in decision-making
- Given those concerns, what kink of information do you need to make food safety decisions?
- Information should be up-to-date, adequate, reliable and pertinent
- Availability of unpublished data
- Access to raw data
- Access to understandable data from other disciplines
- Access to morbidity and mortality information product label
- Where do you currently get your food safety information and what do you do when you cannot find it?
- Product Labels - expiration date, senses....sight and smell, etc
- Internet
- Newsletters, Press and other media
- Personal Communication and Experts
- Professional Journals
- What do you do when you cannot find the information?
- Do not make a decision
- Make the decision based on experience
- Call the FDA other agency
- Given all the different ways that information can be delivered to you, how would you like to get food safety information? Which would you most likely use?
- Internet
- Consumer labels that are more informative
- Newspapers, especially Science and Health sections
- Newsletters with relevant events in food safety
- Professional Journals
- How can we best keep you involved in the development of the food safety risk assessment clearinghouse?
- Internet
- Feedback Mechanism
- Provide a Quality Product that is peer-reviewed
- Newsletters
- Advertise aggressively to academia and consumers
The top five priorities for food safety in decreasing order included:
Politics dominates food safety policy-making and the group felt that policies should be based upon science and not political and economic concerns. There also is a perceived lack of cooperation among government agencies and also between the agencies, academia, and the private sector which may compromise food safety. Other concerns that were identified and discussed included: Lack of research funding, lack of diagnostics, poor risk communication, and overextrapolation and misinterpretation of research data.
A notable point mentioned by one of the participants was the inclusion of recall information that is easily accessible to all consumers and occupy a prominent position in any clearinghouse information vehicle (ie, its own button on an Internet site). The importance of this idea was echoed by the group as a whole and deserves careful consideration.
The group’s top five priorities included:
To further clarify the group choices made above, it was felt that there was reiteration and duplication of research efforts because research data existed but was not available publicly because of proprietary interests or because the researcher and not yet published the results. Access to raw data were viewed as a necessity so that other researchers could further evaluate how the data were analyzed and how conclusions were made. Food safety is a multidisciplinary field and it was felt that more sharing among various disciplines might further facilitate research efforts.
There was considerable discussion centered around providing mortality and morbidity information on product labels. How much information for consumers need? The consensus of the group was that if food products were available in the marketplace they were safe for consumption.
The group concluded that information on morbidity and mortality should be made available on through the clearinghouse and that interested researchers and consumers could both access this information.
The group’s top five points included:
The points are not ranked in a particular order. But it was felt that product labels provide consumers with frontline information that was used in a practical manner. Many of the consumers in the group make their purchasing decisions based on visual inspection, (ie, color of meat, signs of spoilage), and smell.
Consumers and researchers are most likely to use the Internet because it is a "searchable" resource that could be quite easily and quickly accessed to gain further information. Also, product labels were viewed as an invaluable source of food safety information, especially the newer generation of "smart" labels for instance, that will turn red warning consumers that a refrigerated product has exceeded and acceptable temperature during storage.
The group did not rank the top 5 priorities. Again, the Internet was chosen as the best method on information through which announcements can be made and new information and ideas can be solicited from the public. The group felt a feedback mechanism, such as a contact person to phone or email with questions and concerns, with a quick turn-around time, was vital. also, it is important to get the work out about the clearinghouse, perhaps by targeting academic institution and employing public service announcements, and inform and educate potential users and consumers.
Other possibilities would entail providing email updates automatically to user of the clearinghouse. Also, the possibility of researchers being able to receive and contribute comments of data and models was also discussed and deemed important by the group.
