Europe and Japan attach importance to meat safety assessment

Introduction: according to the report of Asahi Shimbun on March 28, focusing on the occurrence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy but "mad cow disease" and its wide and long-term impact on the meat market and consumer market, food safety has once again become one of the most concerned topics Therefore, Japan's discussion on the reform of administrative organizations such as the establishment of food safety agencies has become increasingly active No matter what the form is, the key is that the food safety department should play its due role and exercise the assessment of food safety risk level authoritatively and independently In terms of the improvement of food safety mechanism, the "scientific operation committee" set up by the European Union has aroused great interest of people in the food safety industry, because this organization plays a good role in the development of food safety supervision in European countries The European Union's scientific operation Committee was established in 1997 after the UK made clear the hazards of BSE to human health Its members are 16 scientists from EU countries The committee also has sub disciplinary, subject centered special committees, special committees and specific working groups, with a total of 100 experts The central task of the committee is to assess the safety of meat products The assessment of the European Commission for scientific operation includes: the import of live cattle, beef and meat and bone meal from the United Kingdom and the countries with BSE; whether to feed the meat and bone meal to the cattle in breeding; whether the production line of feed factory is far away from the cattle, pigs and chickens in breeding, and whether it is not necessary to worry about their infection; whether there is a timely detection of BSE infection and the establishment of an inspection body for all cattle herds System and so on After a comprehensive investigation of this series of important food safety issues, the scientific operation Committee ranks the countries and regions where BSE may occur according to their risk levels, and marks them with 1-4 grades from low to high Of course, the survey results will be constantly updated according to the changes of the situation Since 1998, the EU has required all participating countries to accept the scientific operation Committee's assessment on whether or not they are infected with BSE and the degree of infection when they export food, medicine and other products with beef, beef offal and other raw materials For a long time, EU countries suffering from BSE infection are naturally interested in the contents of the work of the EU scientific operation Committee, and take risk assessment as one of the countermeasures to eradicate BSE The European Commission for scientific operations is also likely to merge with the new European food safety agency, which will be set up in April this year In 1998, Japan applied to the European Union's scientific operation committee to assess the level of BSE infection After investigation and study, the committee made a comment on "the country similar to BSE" in Japan, which may be classified as level 3 Hearing the result of the evaluation, Japan's Ministry of agriculture and forestry repeatedly protested and even publicly rejected the evaluation opinion on the risk of BSE infection in June 2001 Since then, Japan has repeatedly found cattle infected with BSE Until December 2001, Japan again submitted an application to the European Commission for scientific operation to assess the level of BSE infection At present, relevant investigation and evidence collection are still in progress The ranking of risk assessment of specific BSE infection published by the European Union scientific operation committee is: Level 1: Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Singapore, Swaziland, Uruguay Level 2: Canada, Colombia, India, Mauritius, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United States, Sweden Level 3: Albania, Austria, Peru, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Virginia, Spain, Switzerland Level 4: Portugal, UK Countries and regions rated as level 4 have the highest risk of BSE However, the assessment reports of Finland, Greece, Japan and Slovenia in the third tier countries and regions are in the investigation and study summary stage, and there is no final result.