Abstract
More than any other consumer product range, food represents an emotional issue with a strong cultural dimension. In a eurobarometer survey of 2002, 89% of the europeans interviewed considered food safety to be very important; interestingly 80% considered animal welfare to be very important in the same survey. Food also has an enormous economic impact on society, with the european food and drink industry boasting a turnover of about 600 billion € (i.e. 15% of the manufacturing output of europe) and 2.6 million employees (Holland and Pope, 2004). this still excludes the agricultural sector, which produces 220 billion € of products and provides 7.5 million people with jobs. In an often quoted speech made in 1962, John F. Kennedy declared consumer safety a fundamental right. Due to globalisation (roughly 50% of our food is nowadays imported) and condensation of the industry, in particular of food retailers, to a rather small number in recent years, an asymmetry of information with respect to the safety and control of food products has developed which requires international attention.
Highlights
Consideration 1: The general public is not aware of the extent of animal experimentation carried out for food products
According to the official statistics (European Commission, 2007), food related issues appear to consume only a small number of experimental animals: About the same number of animals are used for the testing of food additives for humans as for cosmetics, i.e. 0.4-0.5% of all experimental animals in toxicology, which represents 10% of all experimental animal use
One example is the testing of botulinum toxin: This issue was addressed in an ICCVAM/NICEATM/ECVAM Scientific Workshop on Alternative Methods to Refine, Reduce, and Replace the Mouse LD50 Assay For Botulinum Toxin Testing (November 13-14, 2006, Silver Spring, MD; http://iccvam.niehs.nih. gov/docs/biologics-docs/BoNTwkshprept.pdf): Though it is hardly relevant in the EU as a potential food poison, 17 test laboratories carry out botulinum toxin determinations in the US alone (Susan Maslanka (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA), http://iccvam.niehs.nih.gov/methods/biologics/ botdocs/biolowkshp/wkshp_pres.htm), and they use 48 mice per sample (Shashi Sharma (U.S Food and Drug Administration, CFSAN), same website)
Summary
Consideration 1: The general public is not aware of the extent of animal experimentation carried out for food products. According to the official statistics (European Commission, 2007), food related issues appear to consume only a small number of experimental animals: About the same number of animals are used for the testing of food additives for humans as for cosmetics, i.e. 0.4-0.5% of all experimental animals in toxicology, which represents 10% of all experimental animal use.
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