A retrospective analysis of EU RASFF notifications of veterinary drug residues and heavy metals in food

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event A retrospective analysis of EU RASFF notifications of veterinary drug residues and heavy metals in food Elias Papapanagiotou1 and Dimitrios Fletouris1* 1 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Food Hygiene and Technology, Greece Introduction. The legal basis of the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) is Regulation (EC) No 178/2002. Article 50, of this Regulation establishes the RASFF as a network involving the Member States, the Commission and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the EEA countries (Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland). The notifications received on veterinary drug residues and heavy metals in food over the last decade are critically analysed and discussed in terms of classification, food category, hazard, originating country and country of notification. The current EU legislation as well as the current scientific opinions expressed by the EFSA are discussed. A detailed analysis of trends in hazards notified through the RASFF over the last decade, is discussed. Materials and methods. Data obtained by the RASFF database (https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/portal/) were analyzed to highlight trends of occurrence of food hazards over the last decade (2000-2009) in view of the current EU food legislation. Results. Veterinary drug residues and heavy metals appear in food RASFF notifications over the past decade ranking third and fourth, respectively. The most often cited food category for veterinary drug residues notifications over the last decade was “crustaceans and products thereof” followed by “honey and royal jelly”. The most often cited food category for heavy metals notifications over the last decade was “fish and products thereof” followed by “crustaceans and products thereof”. As for the notifying countries, Great Britain and Italy were the highest ranking in terms of number of notifications for veterinary drug residues and heavy metals, respectively. India and China were the countries of origin most cited in all notifications for veterinary drug residues and heavy metals, respectively. Conclusions. Mercury and nitrofuran metabolites were the leading reasons for notifications with regard to heavy metals and veterinary drug residues, respectively over the last decade. The peaks in heavy metals and veterinary drug residues food notifications were seen in 2007 and 2002, respectively with a decreasing trend afterwards. Keywords: heavy metals, legislation, veterinary drug residues Conference: 8th Southeast European Congress on Xenobiotic Metabolism and Toxicity - XEMET 2010, Thessaloniki, Greece, 1 Oct - 5 Oct, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Xenobiotic toxicity Citation: Papapanagiotou E and Fletouris D (2010). A retrospective analysis of EU RASFF notifications of veterinary drug residues and heavy metals in food. Front. Pharmacol. Conference Abstract: 8th Southeast European Congress on Xenobiotic Metabolism and Toxicity - XEMET 2010. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphar.2010.60.00181 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Oct 2010; Published Online: 04 Nov 2010. * Correspondence: Dr. Dimitrios Fletouris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Food Hygiene and Technology, Thessaloniki, 54124, Greece, djflet@vet.auth.gr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Elias Papapanagiotou Dimitrios Fletouris Google Elias Papapanagiotou Dimitrios Fletouris Google Scholar Elias Papapanagiotou Dimitrios Fletouris PubMed Elias Papapanagiotou Dimitrios Fletouris Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.