The authority was also requested to provide a summary of comparable data on specific food-borne hazards in the Member states that would enable risk managers to adapt meat inspection procedures to national requirements.
EFSA’s experts were asked to consider the implications for animal health and welfare of any proposed changes to current inspection practices. To fulfil this complex mandate, EFSA has drawn on its expertise in a wide range of fields within its scientific remit and has broken up the work into six sets of Scientific Opinions and Scientific Reports. The first set covers the inspection of swine.
As well as identifying and ranking the main risks for public health, the scientific experts on EFSA’s panels were asked to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the current inspection methodology, recommend methods that take into account the hazards not addressed by current meat inspection and recommend adaptations of methods and/or frequency of inspections based on the hazard rankings and harmonised epidemiological indicators.
In the area of biological hazards, the food-borne hazards Salmonella, Yersinia enterocolitica, Toxoplasma gondii and Trichinella were identified as priority targets in the inspection of swine meat at abattoir level, due to their prevalence and impact on human health.
It was concluded that current inspection methods do not enable the early detection of the first three of these hazards and, more broadly, do not differentiate food safety aspects from meat quality aspects, prevention of animal diseases or occupational hazards.
The main recommendations on biological hazards are to:
In the area of contaminants, dioxins, dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls and the antibiotic chloramphenicol were identified as chemical substances of high potential concern in pork, based on pre-defined criteria. However, it was concluded that chemical substances at the concentrations found in swine meat are unlikely to pose an immediate or short-term health risk for consumers.
Source: EFSA
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