RAC Meeting Minutes (September 18, 2002)
FDA/CFSAN, Harvey W. Wiley Federal Building
5100 Paint Branch Parkway
College Park, MD 20740
Training Rooms 1A-001 and 1A-002
9:00 -9:45 a.m: Presentation by Angelo Turturro (FY03 dose-response work group - target dose for microbial pathogens)
9:45 - 10:30 a.m: 3 minute updates
Peg Coleman - (FSIS) - workshop on mechanistic modeling in December at
the SRA annual meeting.
8 projects mentioned on FSIS- poster, including risk profiles (N-nitrosamines
and disposition/recall management) and risk assessments (bioterrorism
agents, BSE, E. coli O157:H7, Clostridium perfringens, Listeria, and Salmonella)
in various meat, poultry, and egg products.
Carol Maczka - (FSIS) - comments from NAS on E. coli O157:H7 RA should be released to public on Oct 8th. (The report can be found at: http://books.nap.edu/books/0309086272/html/)
Richard Whiting - (CFSAN) - Vibrio and Listeria RAs are at end of stage of being recalculated. CFSAN has started their formal process for deciding which RA to do next. Going through proposals.
John Cicmanec - (EPA) - EPA has new funding to look at human biosolids, (sewage sludge) and respiratory diseases due to exposure to human biosolids. Also EPA and USDA will collaborate to look at animal biosolids.
Mark Tamplin - (ARS)- Listeria survey in hot dogs, presented at IAFP,
manuscript is going out for review. (The manuscript has since been accepted
for publication by JFP, and will be published early next year, maybe February,
2003 issue.) PMP is moving to an online version rather than downloadable.
ComBase will conduct beta testing this fall; RAC members contact Mark
if you want to be a reviewer.
Sherri Dennis - (CFSAN) - framework for RA selection is on website: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/rafw-toc.html
Angela Ruple- (NOAA Fisheries - formerly NMFS) - Levels of vibrios in
raw molluscan shellfish, selected a “pristine area” a typical
harvest area and a suspected to be contaminated area in both South Carolina
and Mississippi.
Total mercury levels in Gulf of Mexico, fish associated with oilrigs and
highly migratory fish. This is being done in conjunction with EPA.
Jackie McQueen - (ORD) - presented a handout
Draft of Framework for Cumulative RA (http://www.epa.gov/osa/spc/htm/2cumrisk.htm)
Draft of Assessment Factors for Evaluating the Quality of Information
from External Sources (http://www.epa.gov/oei/qualityguidelines/af_home.htm)
Safe Food Multi-Year plan- you may request a copy in Oct. 2002
Tanya Roberts - (ERS) - cost of foodborne illness online modeler will
be demonstrated at the public meeting. It will be live online in a month
or two.
Publication of consumer preferences on hamburger cooking is out.
Survey on firms responses to HACCP. Will be published later.
Dennis Lang - (NIH) - most activities focused on bioterrorism, most of
the food and water borne agents are class B agents. NIAID is organizing
a blue ribbon panel meeting to advise the Institute on a future research
agenda (diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics)
For the last 7 years UMD has had an enteric pathogen research project
funded by NIAID. The contract is ending and being re-competed in an expanded
version to include zoonotics.
Mary Bartholomew - (CVM) - CVM is hosting a public meeting to discuss
a draft guidance document (#152) “Evaluating the Safety of Antimicrobial
New Animal Drugs with Regard to Their Microbiological Effects on Bacteria
of Human Health Concern”. The focus of the document is on the foodborne
route of exposure. The public meeting is on Oct 2 at Doubletree in Rockville.
CVM’s process follows OIE document, release, exposure and consequences
assessment. (transcripts of the meeting can be found at: . http://www.fda.gov/cvm/antimicrobial/ARPM1002Trans.htm)
Angelo Turturro - (NCTR) - Secretary Tommy Thompson visited NCTR and focused completely on bioterrorism. So NCTR is going to strengthen efforts on bioterrorism. Looking for intentional spread of agents.
Steve Schaub - (EPA) - Waterborne microbes workshop in August was successful, got a lot of methods and tools from that workshop. EPA RA forum office and OW will develop microbial RA guidelines (water, air, pesticide waste, biosolids). Are other people from RAC agencies interested in participating in workshops and focus groups? CCL microbes and organisms associated with pesticides and biosolids.
10:30 - 10:50 a.m: FY 2002 in review
10:50 - 11:10 a.m: RAC FY 2003 operations and annual plan
11:10 - 11:30 am: meeting schedule for next year
11:30 - 12:00 p.m: poster set up
12:00 - 1:00 p.m: lunch
1:00 p.m: Public meeting starts. RAC representatives should be available in the Training Rooms to answer questions, collect public comments, and provide coverage for the poster presentations (see below for list).
The afternoon session of the fall quarterly meeting of the Risk Assessment Consortium was a poster session that was open to the general public. The meeting was held at the Harvey W. Wiley Federal Building in College Park, MD. Advance notice of the meeting was made available to the public via a Federal Register notice and members of the general public, the food industry, as well as employees of the various government agencies that regulate the food industry attended. Fourteen posters were displayed and two of the exhibits were computer demonstrations; one dealt with various models of cost-benefit analysis and was provided by the Economic Research Service of USDA and the other was a demonstration of the FoodSafetyRisk website. The other posters provided information on the various aspects of food safety including data gathering methods, risk analysis activities of NOAA fisheries, microbial community dynamics, organophosphate pesticide cumulative risk, and development of predictive models. Among the centers of the Food and Drug Administration CFSAN, NCTR, and CVM were represented. From the Department of Agriculture ERS, FSIS and ARS were represented and from the Environmental Protection Agency OPPTS and ORD were represented.
5:00 p.m: Public meeting ends
In attendance:
Mary Bartholomew CVM
Mary Bender CFSAN
Peg Coleman FSIS
Sherri Dennis CFSAN
Rolando Flores ARS
John Hicks CFSAN
Audrey Ichida JIFSAN
Dennis Lang NIH
Wes Long JIFSAN
Carol Maczka FSIS (phone)
Jacqueline McQueen ORD
Tanya Roberts ERS
Angela Ruple NOAA
Steve Schaub (phone) OW
Mark Tamplin ARS
Erik Torring DoD/VSA
Angelo Turturro NCTR
Richard Whiting CFSAN
John Cicmanec EPA
Marianna Miliotis CFSAN
Agencies represented:
Veterinary Service Activity (DOD/VSA)
Office of Water (EPA/OW)
Office of Research and Development (EPA/ORD)
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (DHHS/FDA/CFSAN)
Center for Veterinary Medicine (DHHS/FDA/CVM)
National Center for Toxicological Research (DHHS/FDA/NCTR)
National Institutes of Health (DHHS/NIH)
Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries (NOAA Fisheries)
formerly NMFS
Agricultural Research Service (USDA/ARS)
Economic Research Service (USDA/ERS)
Food Safety Inspection Service (USDA/FSIS)
