Food risks and dangers: the great confusion
In light of recent news reports (the Lubrizol fire, the death of a young boy in the Oise region infected with Escherichia coli bacteria, students falling ill after a school cross-country race), I would like to explain as simply as possible in this article the difference between a risk and a hazard in the food sector, which are often confused and which confuse consumers' understanding of the information disseminated by social networks and the media.
Didier Montet, University of Montpellier
The definition of danger is relatively simple. Risk is more difficult to grasp because it is the probability of being in the presence of danger. If the danger is not present, the risk is zero, and if the danger is very present, the risk is proportional to the amount of danger.
In food, you will be confronted with chemical hazards (pesticides, certain additives, toxins, hormones, etc.), biological hazards (pathogenic bacteria, toxin-producing molds, viruses, prions, etc.), and heavy metals (mercury, lead, cadmium, copper, sulfur, etc.). These foreign substances pose a risk to consumers and become dangerous when present in quantities sufficient to cause either a violent, acute attack (toxins, metals, viruses), as in the case of botulinum toxin poisoning, or a chronic attack such as cancer.
Where are the toxic molecules?
These toxins are often found in very small quantities in food and are managed by strict standards that are accepted worldwide by Codex Alimentarius experts. The Codex Alimentarius is a joint program of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) that produces a collection of standards, guidelines, and recommendations relating to food production and processing with the aim of ensuring food safety. Experts consider that the standard provides significant safety for consumers. The values of health standards for food toxins are around one microgram (µg) per kilogram of food. This amount is extremely small (1 millionth of a gram), but analytical equipment can be used to quantify it. For educational purposes, I calculated what one µg/kg represents in terms of time for a conference with my lawyer friends. One µg/kg represents one second over 32 years. It is rare in everyday life to be so precise in one's activities.
On October 10, the newspaper 20 Minutes reported that dioxin levels (prohibited for consumption) in soil in Rouen were four times higher than the standard. The World Health Organization recommends a maximum permissible dose of 10 pg/day/kg of body weight (i.e., one millionth of a millionth of a gram/day/kg), which is a precautionary threshold for daily exposure over a lifetime. That's not much, and four times that amount isn't much either! At these doses, it is extremely difficult to estimate the real danger.
What are the differences between risks and dangers?
I will now give a few examples to clarify the understanding of the terms risk and danger. In Europe, health agencies work on calculating risk, i.e., the presence of a potential danger, whereas in Africa, where I often work, food safety is a very real danger. When European consumers hear the word "risk," they understand it to mean danger, even though the danger may not actually exist.
Pesticides include herbicides such as the well-known Roundup (Monsanto, recently acquired by Bayer), fungicides (anti-mold agents), and insecticides. This represents approximately 500 molecules authorized by Europe, some of which are hazardous to health, particularly for farmers who handle them in large quantities.
For consumers, the quantities found in food in Europe are very low, generally less than 5 µg/kg for 95.9% of conventional and organic foods.
The report states that 96.2% of the 84,657 samples analyzed complied with legal limits. 50.7% were free of quantifiable residues, while 45.5% of the samples analyzed contained quantified residues that did not exceed maximum residue levels (MRLs). The assessment of acute and chronic dietary risks showed that the likelihood of European citizens being exposed to concentrations of pesticide residues that could cause adverse health effects was therefore low.
This risk is difficult to estimate because it relates to the toxicology of molecular traces, whose toxicity to humans is virtually impossible to calculate using current methods. In less stringent countries, banned pesticides are still in circulation. Other pesticides are used on unintended targets.
Faced with the sharp increase in antibiotic resistance, particularly in certain pathogenic bacteria, the EU banned the use of antibiotics in animal feed in 2005, even though these antibiotics are still authorized in most other countries around the world, some of which have trade agreements with Europe (Southeast Asia, the US, Mercosur). In Europe, antibiotics remain authorized for treating animal diseases in both conventional and organic farming. The danger is therefore that pathogenic bacteria will become resistant to antibiotics. The risk is very poorly controlled because there are currently no health standards on antibiotic resistance and controls are only carried out on antibiotic content.
Mycotoxins are toxins produced by certain molds, some of which are carcinogenic. They are very common in humid and warm environments, where they can reach extremely high levels. In Europe, certain toxin-producing molds are present, but the levels of mycotoxins measured are generally below the thresholds considered dangerous to health by experts. The danger is therefore recognized in Europe, but the risk is difficult to calculate and can be considered low. It will depend on the use of chemical fungicides, of which copper sulfate is well known in organic farming. The general public is not yet aware of this danger, which can kill entire families acutely in Africa and more insidiously through cancer.
Pathogenic bacteria, which can be deadly, are natural and found everywhere, particularly in soil but also in the intestines of animals. No one can escape this danger, and quantifying them in fresh food is virtually impossible before it is placed on the market, given the speed at which food flows around the world. Only strict hygiene measures and controlled processes can prevent their presence.
The danger will therefore depend on the initial bacterial load, but also on the process (sterilization, cold chain), marketing, and, above all, consumer behavior. Some accidents are still due to poor consumer education.
Certain minerals (lead, arsenic, mercury, copper) may occur naturally in food or result from the manufacturing process. They are toxic and pose a danger that must be avoided in food. Some older fish contain high levels of heavy metals because they accumulate these metals in their internal organs. The risk is not easy to estimate because it depends on the content of the food as well as the amount consumed.
Consuming large amounts of sugar increases the risk of obesity and therefore mortality from metabolic diseases. Here we have an example of low danger and high risk.
It is interesting to note that in our countries, risk frightens people more than danger because risk is often misunderstood and poorly explained, whereas danger is controlled by professionals.
In Europe, experts meet approximately once a month to assess the risk posed by certain products such as GMOs, novel foods, and additives, which can only be placed on the market after receiving a positive opinion from the agencies.
Didier Montet, Researcher and expert in food safety, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.