Facilitating the Decision-Making Process After a Nuclear Accident: Case Studies in the Netherlands and Slovakia.

Nuclear accidents do not occur frequently, but their biological, psychosocial, and/or economic consequences may be severe. Hence, a thorough preparation for nuclear emergencies is needed to provide appropriate actions. During the transition phase of an accident, it is vital to include stakeholders in the decision-making process in order to gain support for the recovery strategy to be implemented as well as to share different perspectives, knowledge, and views on the decision problem. Because nuclear accidents are complex, involving many relevant factors that range from technical aspects such as health effects and costs to nontechnical issues such as social acceptance, a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) may facilitate the decision-making process. The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of MCDA in the transition phase of a nuclear accident. To this end, an MCDA tool, which uses the weighted sum of a set of normalized criteria, was explored in exercises carried out in panel meetings with a selected set of (largely) governmental stakeholders. The panel meetings were performed in the Netherlands and the Slovak Republic. The exercises were based on a fictitious case study that affected the urban environment of a small city. Prior to the meetings, a set of 8 possible recovery strategies was identified. The use of the MCDA tool showed that it facilitated the decision-making process because it allowed for a structured and transparent approach in which stakeholders with diverse backgrounds can express their opinions and perspectives and reach consensus on the most appropriate recovery strategy. As such, it could be applied to a broader field of research involving any chemical release that necessitates an extended recovery strategy. Future research is needed in order to incorporate psychosocial effects of a nuclear accident as well as a broader group of stakeholders in exercises. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;17:376-387. © 2020 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Data Analyses and Modelling for Risk Based Monitoring of Mycotoxins in Animal Feed.

Following legislation, European Member States should have multi-annual control programs for contaminants, such as for mycotoxins, in feed and food. These programs need to be risk based implying the checks are regular and proportional to the estimated risk for animal and human health. This study aimed to prioritize feed products in the Netherlands for deoxynivalenol and aflatoxin B1 monitoring. Historical mycotoxin monitoring results from the period 2007-2016 were combined with data from other sources. Based on occurrence, groundnuts had high priority for aflatoxin B1 monitoring; some feed materials (maize and maize products and several oil seed products) and complete/complementary feed excluding dairy cattle and young animals had medium priority; and all other animal feeds and feed materials had low priority. For deoxynivalenol, maize by-products had a high priority, complete and complementary feed for pigs had a medium priority and all other feed and feed materials a low priority. Also including health consequence estimations showed that feed materials that ranked highest for aflatoxin B1 included sunflower seed and palmkernel expeller/extracts and maize. For deoxynivalenol, maize products were ranked highest, followed by various small grain cereals (products); all other feed materials were of lower concern. Results of this study have proven to be useful in setting up the annual risk based control program for mycotoxins in animal feed and feed materials.

A holistic approach to food safety risks: Food fraud as an example.

Production of sufficient, safe and nutritious food is a global challenge faced by the actors operating in the food production chain. The performance of food-producing systems from farm to fork is directly and indirectly influenced by major changes in, for example, climate, demographics, and the economy. Many of these major trends will also drive the development of food safety risks and thus will have an effect on human health, local societies and economies. It is advocated that a holistic or system approach taking into account the influence of multiple "drivers" on food safety is followed to predict the increased likelihood of occurrence of safety incidents so as to be better prepared to prevent, mitigate and manage associated risks. The value of using a Bayesian Network (BN) modelling approach for this purpose is demonstrated in this paper using food fraud as an example. Possible links between food fraud cases retrieved from the RASFF (EU) and EMA (USA) databases and features of these cases provided by both the records themselves and additional data obtained from other sources are demonstrated. The BN model was developed from 1393 food fraud cases and 15 different data sources. With this model applied to these collected data on food fraud cases, the product categories that thus showed the highest probabilities of being fraudulent were "fish and seafood" (20.6%), "meat" (13.4%) and "fruits and vegetables" (10.4%). Features of the country of origin appeared to be important factors in identifying the possible hazards associated with a product. The model had a predictive accuracy of 91.5% for the fraud type and demonstrates how expert knowledge and data can be combined within a model to assist risk managers to better understand the factors and their interrelationships.

Impact of climate change effects on contamination of cereal grains with deoxynivalenol.

Climate change is expected to aggravate feed and food safety problems of crops; however, quantitative estimates are scarce. This study aimed to estimate impacts of climate change effects on deoxynivalenol contamination of wheat and maize grown in the Netherlands by 2040. Quantitative modelling was applied, considering both direct effects of changing climate on toxin contamination and indirect effects via shifts in crop phenology. Climate change projections for the IPCC A1B emission scenario were used for the scenario period 2031-2050 relative to the baseline period of 1975-1994. Climatic data from two different global and regional climate model combinations were used. A weather generator was applied for downscaling climate data to local conditions. Crop phenology models and prediction models for DON contamination used, each for winter wheat and grain maize. Results showed that flowering and full maturity of both wheat and maize will advance with future climate. Flowering advanced on average 5 and 11 days for wheat, and 7 and 14 days for maize (two climate model combinations). Full maturity was on average 10 and 17 days earlier for wheat, and 19 and 36 days earlier for maize. On the country level, contamination of wheat with deoxynivalenol decreased slightly, but not significantly. Variability between regions was large, and individual regions showed a significant increase in deoxynivalenol concentrations. For maize, an overall decrease in deoxynivalenol contamination was projected, which was significant for one climate model combination, but not significant for the other one. In general, results disagree with previous reported expectations of increased feed and food safety hazards under climate change. This study illustrated the relevance of using quantitative models to estimate the impacts of climate change effects on food safety, and of considering both direct and indirect effects when assessing climate change impacts on crops and related food safety hazards.

Extreme Heat Resistance of Food Borne Pathogens Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella typhimurium on Chicken Breast Fillet during Cooking.

The aim of this research was to determine the decimal reduction times of bacteria present on chicken fillet in boiling water. The experiments were conducted with Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella, and Escherichia coli. Whole chicken breast fillets were inoculated with the pathogens, stored overnight (4°C), and subsequently cooked. The surface temperature reached 70°C within 30 sec and 85°C within one minute. Extremely high decimal reduction times of 1.90, 1.97, and 2.20 min were obtained for C. jejuni, E. coli, and S. typhimurium, respectively. Chicken meat and refrigerated storage before cooking enlarged the heat resistance of the food borne pathogens. Additionally, a high challenge temperature or fast heating rate contributed to the level of heat resistance. The data were used to assess the probability of illness (campylobacteriosis) due to consumption of chicken fillet as a function of cooking time. The data revealed that cooking time may be far more critical than previously assumed.

Food safety in the domestic environment: the effect of consumer risk information on human disease risks.

The improvement of food safety in the domestic environment requires a transdisciplinary approach, involving interaction between both the social and natural sciences. This approach is applied in a study on risks associated with Campylobacter on broiler meat. First, some web-based information interventions were designed and tested on participant motivation and intentions to cook more safely. Based on these self-reported measures, the intervention supported by the emotion "disgust" was selected as the most promising information intervention. Its effect on microbial cross-contamination was tested by recruiting a set of participants who prepared a salad with chicken breast fillet carrying a known amount of tracer bacteria. The amount of tracer that could be recovered from the salad revealed the transfer and survival of Campylobacter and was used as a measure of hygiene. This was introduced into an existing risk model on Campylobacter in the Netherlands to assess the effect of the information intervention both at the level of exposure and the level of human disease risk. We showed that the information intervention supported by the emotion "disgust" alone had no measurable effect on the health risk. However, when a behavioral cue was embedded within the instruction for the salad preparation, the risk decreased sharply. It is shown that a transdisciplinary approach, involving research on risk perception, microbiology, and risk assessment, is successful in evaluating the efficacy of an information intervention in terms of human health risks. The approach offers a novel tool for science-based risk management in the area of food safety.

Food safety in the domestic environment: an interdisciplinary investigation of microbial hazards during food preparation.

It has been established that, to a considerable extent, the domestic hygiene practices adopted by consumers can result in a greater or lesser microbial load in prepared meals. In the research presented here, an interdisciplinary study is reported in which interviews, observations of consumers preparing a recipe, and microbial contamination of the finished meals were compared. The results suggest that, while most consumers are knowledgeable about the importance of cross-contamination and heating in preventing the occurrence of foodborne illness, this knowledge is not necessarily translated into behavior. The adoption of habitual cooking practices may also be important. Potentially risky behaviors were, indeed, observed in the domestic food preparation environment. Eighteen of the participants made errors in food preparation that could potentially result in cross-contamination, and seven participants allowed raw meat juices to come in contact with the final meal. Using a tracer microorganism the log reduction as a result of consumer preparation was estimated at an average of log 4.1 cfu/salad. When combining these findings, it was found that cross-contamination errors were a good predictor for log reduction. Procedural food safety knowledge (i.e., knowledge proffered after general open questions) was a better predictor of efficacious bacterial reduction than declarative food safety knowledge (i.e., knowledge proffered after formal questioning). This suggests that motivation to prepare safe food was a better indicator of actual behavior than knowledge about food safety per se.

A systematic approach to determine global thermal inactivation parameters for various food pathogens.

Thermal inactivation of pathogens has been studied extensively, which has resulted in a wide range of D- and z-values. Estimating the inactivation rate for a specific condition based on these reported values is difficult, since one has to select representative conditions, and data obtained exactly at the required representative conditions are generally not available. Therefore, a first step could be to globally assess a heat treatment taking into account largest effects only. Once the most important parameters are known, a more precise study of inactivation can be performed. Therefore, in this study a large quantity of D-values (n=4066) was collected from literature for various pathogens and linear regression was applied to obtain average D-values (together with the 95% upper prediction level) and z-values. When comparing these overall data, it can be seen that most factors reported to have an effect on the D-value are smaller than the variability of all published D-values. Even effects of shoulders disappear in the overall analysis. Only a limited number of factors that did have a significant effect (p<0.05) on the D-value were identified: for Salmonella spp., the presence of chocolate ingredients gave protection to the cells, for Listeria monocytogenes the presence of 10% salt (or a(w)<0.92) resulted in a higher heat resistance, for Bacillus cereus there were significant differences for various strains and in oily products and for Clostridium botulinum there were significant differences in heat resistance between different types of C. botulinum. This does not mean that other effects do not occur, but it shows the main effects that have to be included for a first impression on the performance of a heating process. The obtained 95% upper prediction levels of the D-values can be used as a (conservative) estimate of inactivation and can be used to give order of magnitude values in overall process evaluations.