The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are requesting comments and scientific data and information to assist them in their plan to update a 2003 quantitative assessment. This risk assessment examined the relative risk to public health from foodborne L. monocytogenes among 23 selected categories of ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, which provided estimates for the number of listeriosis cases attributable to each of 23 RTE food categories and allowed for a relative ranking of the 23 food categories based on the associated public health risk.
FDA and FSIS initiated an update to the 2003 risk assessment to help ensure that risk mitigation strategies, risk management policies, outreach efforts, data collection initiatives, and research priorities aimed at controlling L. monocytogenes in RTE foods are directed to those RTE foods that pose the greatest risk.
FDA and FSIS are seeking newly available scientific data and information in order to update estimates of the relative risk of illness and death associated with the consumption of different types of RTE foods that may be contaminated with L. monocytogenes and to evaluate the relative effectiveness of strategies to reduce or prevent exposure to L. monocytogenes from the consumption of RTE foods, including, for example, the impact of changing refrigerated time and temperature storage prior to consumption.
Comments must be submitted within 90 days of publication of Federal Register Notice. To submit comments go to http://www.regulations.gov/.
To read the advanced copy of the notice, go to http://www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2011-08360_PI.pdf.
Source: American Meat Institute