Improving Public Health Through Mycotoxin Control

Mycotoxins are fungal toxins that contaminate many of the most frequently consumed foods and feeds worldwide, including staple foods consumed by many of the poorest and most vulnerable populations in the world. Therefore, human and animal exposure to one or more of this broad group of toxins is widespread. Mycotoxins have the potential to contribute to a diversity of adverse health effects in humans, including cancer, even at low concentrations. Economic burdens resulting from crop contamination are added to those on health. Given the ubiquitous nature of exposure in many countries, an urgent need exists for a coordinated international response to the problem of mycotoxin contamination of food. This book aims to sensitize the international community to the mycotoxin problem in a format that is accessible to a wide audience and is useful to decision-makers across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including agriculture, public health, marketing, and economics. The editors hope that this book will be a stimulus to governments, nongovernmental and international organizations, and the private sector to initiate measures designed to minimize mycotoxin exposure in high-risk populations. The book not only provides a scientific description of the occurrence and effects of mycotoxins but also goes further by outlining approaches to reduce mycotoxin exposure aimed at improving public health in low-income countries.

This book is an outcome of the MycoGlobe conference in Accra. Most of the chapters are based on invited oral presentations made at the conference. The chapters in this book touch on issues including health, trade, ecology, epidemiology, occurrence, detection, management, awareness and policy. This book serves as a source of information on the occurrence and impact of mycotoxins on everything from trade and health to agricultural production in addition to suggesting opportunities for their management in Africa and elsewhere by researchers, policy makers and development investors.

This book provides an evaluation of measures to reduce exposure to highly toxic and carcinogenic contaminants in staple diets in Africa as well as parts of Asia and Latin America. Many of the poorest people in these regions are exposed to the pervasive natural toxins, aflatoxins and fumonisins, on a daily basis by eating their staple diet of groundnuts, maize, and other cereals. Exposure to mycotoxins at these high levels substantially increases mortality and morbidity. Aflatoxins are a cause of human liver cancer, and fatalities from acute aflatoxin poisoning outbreaks occur in Africa and Asia. The International Agency for Research on Cancer convened a Working Group of world-leading experts to review the health effects of aflatoxins and fumonisins and to evaluate intervention measures. The panel concluded that these mycotoxins not only are a cause of acute poisoning and cancer but also are a likely contributor to the high levels of stunting in children in affected populations. The Working Group also identified effective measures to reduce exposure in developing countries. The panel evaluated 15 interventions, considering the strength of the evidence as well as its completeness and its transferability at an individual, community, or national level. Four of the interventions were judged to be ready for implementation: improvement of dietary diversity; crop sorting; post-harvest measures, including improved storage; and, in Latin America for maize, optimized nixtamalization. These recommendations would be relevant for investment of public, nongovernmental organization, and private funds at the scale of the subsistence farmer, the smallholder, and through to a more advanced value chain.

Present Knowledge in Food Safety: A Risk-Based Approach Through the Food Chain presents approaches for exposure-led risk assessment and the management of changes in the chemical, pathogenic microbiological and physical (radioactivity) contamination of ’food’ at all key stages of production, from farm to consumption. This single volume resource introduces scientific advances at all stages of the production to improve reliability, predictability and relevance of food safety assessments for the protection of public health. This book is aimed at a diverse audience, including graduate and post-graduate students in food science, toxicology, microbiology, medicine, public health, and related fields. The book's reach also includes government agencies, industrial scientists, and policymakers involved in food risk analysis. Includes new technologies such as nanotechnology, genetic modification, and cloning Provides information on advances in pathogen risk assessment through novel and real-time molecular biological techniques, biomarkers, resistance measurement, and cell-to-cell communication in the gut Covers the role of the microbiome and the use of surrogates (especially for viruses)

The book deals with mycotoxins, their presence in various types of food, and how to prevent their presence in food . In addition to well-known molecules, such as aflatoxins or fumonisins, some contributors have dealt with emerging mycotoxins (e.g., alternaria toxins, botryodiplodin). Readers of the book can also find a new approach to reducing aflatoxins and fumonisins in food. In conclusion, the book presents both new mycotoxins and new information on old mycotoxins.

Health and safety of food and feed are the most important criteria for their quality. The quality of feed is in turn important for animal health, the environment and for the safety of food from animal origin. Fungi belonging to the Fusarium genus are widespread in crops causing plant diseases and producing toxic metabolites. Fusarium species can colonize plants during their growth on the field and cause serious damage in terms of yield and quality of harvested grains. One of the most important fungal diseases of wheat and other cereals in the world is Fusariumhead blight caused by the fungal pathogens Fusarium graminearum and Fusarium culmorumand others. In addition, these fungi produce mycotoxins, contaminating food and feed. The most important Fusarium mycotoxins include trichothecenes, zearalenone and fumonisins, primarily because of their prevalence, but also because of the toxic effect to humans and animals. However, these fungi produce also other mycotoxins such as moniliformin, beauvericin, enniantin or fusarins. Food and feed can be contaminated with mycotoxins at various stages in the production chain resulting in serious problems with health, safety and economic losses. It is estimated that 25% of the crop in the world each year are contaminated with these metabolites, the problem affects both industrialized countries and developing countries. The aim of this Research Topic of Frontiers in Microbiology is to publish state of the art research about occurrence and genomics of Fusarium species and their mycotoxins in the whole food and feed chain starting from the crops as well as implications for health and economic aspects. This research topic highlights the current knowledge on the plant diseases caused by Fusarium fungi as well as all aspects of Fusarium mycotoxin contamination of crops, food and feed, taking into account decontamination methods.

Climate change is causing unprecedented damage to our ecosystem. Increasing temperatures, ocean warming and acidification, severe droughts, wildfires, altered precipitation patterns, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and amplification of extreme weather events have direct implications for our food systems. While the impacts of such environmental factors on food security are well known, the effects on food safety receive less attention. The purpose of Climate change: Unpacking the burden on food safety is to identify and attempt to quantify some current and anticipated food safety issues that are associated with climate change. The food safety hazards considered in the publication are foodborne pathogens and parasites, harmful algal blooms, pesticides, mycotoxins and heavy metals with emphasis on methylmercury. There is also, a dedicated section on the benefits of forward-looking approaches such as horizon scanning and foresight, which will not only aid in anticipating future challenges in a shifting global food safety landscape, but also help build resilient food systems that can be continually updated as more knowledge is assimilated. By building a more widespread and better understanding of the consequences climate change has on food safety, it is hoped that this document will aid in fostering stronger international cooperation in making our food safer by reducing the global burden of these concerns.

From contaminated infant formula to a spate of all-too familiar headlines in recent years, food safety has emerged as one of the harsher realities behind China's economic miracle. Tainted beef, horse meat and dioxin outbreaks in the western world have also put food safety in the global spotlight. Food Safety in China: Science, Technology, Management and Regulation presents a comprehensive overview of the history and current state of food safety in China, along with emerging regulatory trends and the likely future needs of the country. Although the focus is on China, global perspectives are presented in the chapters and 33 of the 99 authors are from outside of China. Timely and illuminating, this book offers invaluable insights into our understanding of a critical link in the increasingly globalized complex food supply chain of today's world.