Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 11:30am to 1:00pm
St. Paul Student Center Theater
In his lecture, Dr. Schlundt discussed global food safety regulatory and policy challenges including the need for international policy alignment and lowering disease burden through incremental improvements at national or regional levels, and the use of new methodologies to attain dramatic improvement. He explored how, in some countries new experience is now building as per improving the food safety level and lowering the food-borne disease burden. While the last decade has seen a new focus on scientifically-based risk assessment and policy-decisions based upon this, the future will see a new focus on the reals disease burden as it relates to specific pathogens as well as specific pathogen-food combinations. Prof. Schlundt described how, using new methods to type microorganisms in animals, food, and man, it will be possible to attribute disease to a source and thereby suggest efficient solutions. At the same time such solutions will result in incremental improvements of the food safety situation in different regions, leading to the potential sharing of good experience and thereby disease reduction at national, regional and global level.
Commentators:
Joseph Scimeca, PhD, Director of Global Regulatory Affairs, Cargill
Prof. Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), University of Minnesota
Moderator:
Prof. Shaun Kennedy, Director, National Center for Food Protection & Defense
1.5 CLE credits approved. Reference #167008.
Jorgen Schlundt, PhD, is Deputy Director of the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark. He has worked most recently for the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1999–2010 as Director of the Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses. He has a veterinary degree as well as a Ph.D. from the Veterinary University in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Dr. Schlundt worked at the national level on environmental and food safety issues from 1983 to 1999. During this period, he also worked at the Veterinary Research Laboratory in Harare, Zimbabwe. He has participated in international scientific evaluations and management activities in a number of international bodies.
In recent years, Dr. Schlundt has been focused on international activities aimed at improving food safety systems within an integrated farm-to-table framework and has overseen major new international initiatives, including the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) and the Global Foodborne Infections Network (GFN).