Food safety document
Abstract: Food safety is a hot topic in today's society. The health administrative departments of governments at all levels and their subordinate health supervision institutions should be the functional departments responsible for food safety and health supervision earlier in China, and have legal obligations that cannot be disposed of. The means to fulfill this legal obligation is health supervision. Food will be polluted by harmful factors in a series of processes from farmland to dining table, which will lead to the harmfulness of food and thus constitute food safety problems. Food safety involves many departments, levels and links, and it is a complex system engineering. At present, it should be established and improved as soon as possible: an overview of food safety; Food safety emergency mechanism; A complete and unified food safety standard and inspection and testing system; Food safety risk assessment system; Food safety credit system; Food safety information monitoring, reporting and publishing network system; Countermeasures system and other nine systems to promote the overall improvement of food safety.
[Keywords:] food safety overview; System construction; manage
order
Bread is the pillar of life. Food is the most basic material condition for human survival and development. In China's national economy, the food industry has become the largest industry. According to relevant data, from 1993 to 1998, the total output value of China's food industry increased from 343 billion yuan to 600 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 12%. In 2003, the total output value of food industry in China exceeded 654.38+0.2 trillion yuan for the first time, far exceeding the total output value of automobile industry of 940 billion yuan. However, the successive vicious food safety accidents in the world and China have aroused people's great concern about food safety, and also prompted governments of various countries to re-examine this issue, which has risen to the height of national public safety, and countries have increased their supervision over food safety.
On April 16, 2003, China State Food and Drug Administration was officially listed, which marked that China's food safety work entered a new stage of combining comprehensive supervision with specific supervision, and also showed the determination of our government to keep pace with the times and do a good job in food safety work. However, since then, negative news about food safety has continued. Through the in-depth follow-up reports of news media, we learned about events such as inferior milk powder in Fuyang, paraffin bottom material in Chongqing hot pot, inferior floss in Taicang, and "fat miscellaneous" Longkou vermicelli in Shandong. According to media reports, a survey on food safety recently completed by the Social Investigation Center of China Youth Daily shows that the recent frequent food safety incidents have aroused widespread public concern. 82% of the public said that these incidents "will definitely" cause their own concerns about food safety around them, 13% said "possible". Compared with developed countries, China's current food safety supervision started slowly and there are many problems. The main reason why China's food safety problems are repeatedly banned is that China lacks a complete food safety guarantee system. We believe that for a long time to come, China should take the establishment of China's food safety guarantee system as the focus and strategic goal of food safety work.
I. Overview of Food Safety
1, definition
(1) Food safety. According to the international general principles of food hygiene, it is defined as: ensuring that food will not harm consumers when cooked and/or eaten according to its purpose. The food safety here emphasizes the consequences. The definition of fundamental terms of food industry GB 1509 1-95 is: measures taken to prevent food from being polluted by harmful substances including physical, chemical and biological aspects during production, harvesting, processing, transportation, storage and sales, so as to make food beneficial to human health and have good texture. And its synonym is listed as: food hygiene. It can be seen that food safety here includes measures to be taken in the whole food chain from food production to sales. It conforms to the legislative purpose of the Food Hygiene Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) (hereinafter referred to as the Food Hygiene Law): to ensure food hygiene, prevent food pollution and harmful factors from harming the human body, safeguard people's health and enhance people's physique.
(2) Food safety hazards. Refers to factors or factors that may damage or endanger the safety and quality of food. These factors include biology, chemistry and physics. They can exist in food in various ways. Once these factors are not controlled or eliminated, food will become toxic food that threatens human health.
2. Features
Food safety hazards factor has the following characteristics:
(1) can exist in the whole food chain from farmland to table. With the development of food industry and the aggravation of environmental pollution, this feature will become more prominent. The probability of food safety hazards factor or factor in food will be further increased.
(2) The food safety problems caused by different food chain links are also different. For example, agricultural products may be harmed by chemicals such as pesticides, veterinary drugs and hormones during the planting process; The hazards or factors in food production and processing may be mainly biological and physical. Therefore, in different links of the whole human food chain, the food safety hazards factor has its own emphasis and degree.
(3) The degree or consequence of food safety hazards is influenced by both subjective (artificial) and objective (natural) factors. Especially the subjective aspect, that is, food safety hazards's man-made role, the degree and consequences caused by this role can be alleviated or aggravated.
(4) The consequences of food safety hazards factor on human health can be manifested as acute, subacute and chronic reactions (poisoning) due to its type and toxicity. Its chronic reaction (poisoning) is latent and hidden, and it is not easy to be found, so it is not valued by people.
(5) food safety hazards can be controlled or eliminated by various means and measures to minimize its harm to human health and meet the basic requirements of non-toxic and harmless human food. These means or measures are of a legal nature, that is, to supervise and manage food safety hazards according to law, such as the Food Hygiene Law. There are also technical ones, such as GMP and HACCP. These laws, regulations and standards are effective measures to ensure food safety and reduce its harm.
Step 3 classify
According to HACCP Implementation Guide for Food Enterprises, food safety hazards can be divided into three types: biological, chemical and physical. Food safety hazards factor exists in these three types. They can invade any link of the whole food chain from farmland to dining table, causing food (raw materials, semi-finished products and finished products) to be toxic and harmful, and become toxic food.
4, the consequences
Food safety hazards's consequences are food-borne diseases. This is caused by the ingestion of various pathogenic factors into the human body, and it is usually an infectious or toxic disease. It is worth noting that food-borne diseases include not only traditional food poisoning, but also intestinal infectious diseases, food-borne parasitic diseases and toxic diseases caused by toxic and harmful pollutants in food. It can be seen that the scope of food-borne diseases is expanding. Moreover, according to the concept of modern medicine, some chronic degenerative diseases (cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, tumors, diabetes, etc. ), food-borne allergic diseases and chronic toxic diseases caused by some pollutants in food also belong to the category of food-borne diseases.
Foodborne diseases can cause the following three states: acute reaction (poisoning), subacute reaction (poisoning) and chronic reaction (poisoning), depending on the pathogenic species, virulence and human immunity. Generally speaking, biological hazard factors in food often lead to acute reactions, which are manifested as various food poisoning. The main factors that constitute the current public health emergencies. There are many kinds of chemical hazards, which are closely related to food types, dosage factors, environmental conditions, technological processes and human factors. Whether it leads to acute, subacute or chronic reactions, there is an obvious dose-response relationship. Such as nitrite poisoning dose: 0.3 ~ 0.5g, lethal dose: 1.0 ~ 3.0g ... arsenic trioxide poisoning dose: 5 ~ 50mg, lethal dose: 60 ~ 500mg. Dose and reaction are typical characteristics of chemical hazard factors in food safety hazards. It has become the basis for formulating national food hygiene standards, food-borne disease diagnosis, monitoring and evaluation of chemical pollutants in food, and health publicity and education.
One of the harmful effects of food safety hazards factor on human health is to cause acute manifestations, which are group, sudden, extensive and social. However, due to the dose-response relationship of toxic effect of food safety hazards factor and the limitations of current food safety control technology, subacute and chronic reactions to human health caused by food safety hazards factor are as important as acute reactions. Such as pesticide and veterinary drug residues, and harmful substances produced in the process of food production and operation, such as chloropropanol, acrylamide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, etc. It is proved that the chronic toxic effects of these harmful substances on human body are teratogenic, carcinogenic and mutagenic. The consequences will be irreversible. Finished product (finished product) is toxic and harmful, becoming toxic food.
To sum up, we believe that food hygiene is only a part of food safety issues. No matter from the name of the law or the content of the law itself, the legal system of food safety should be built around the core of "food safety". There are two suggestions: first, rename the Food Hygiene Law as the Food Safety Law, and make a comprehensive revision and supplement; The other is to re-enact the basic law of food safety, which is the "mother law" in the field of food safety. Its basic contents should at least include the following aspects: (1) Objective: To promote and ensure food safety in an all-round way. (2) Definition: Define the legal meanings of terms such as "food" and "food safety". (3) Scope of food safety supervision: The state supervises food safety from farmland to table. (4) Supervision system: put forward the basic supervision framework and functions of all parties in the form of law. (5) Principles of food safety supervision: safeguarding people's health, paying attention to scientific basis, paying equal attention to control and prevention, being open, objective and fair, and so on. (6) Food safety responsibilities of other social classes. Mainly food production and operation enterprises, including food-related industries, food industry associations and consumers. (7) Emergency treatment. (8) Standard testing, including market access. (9) Safety risk assessment. (10) credit system. (1 1) food safety information network. (12) Publicity and education. (13) Promotion of trade associations and research institutions. (14) Legal liability. Emphasize the illegal responsibility of the regulatory body, do a good job of connecting with the criminal law, and set severe penalties for illegal food producers and operators.
The dignity of the law is enforced, not made. No matter how strict and perfect the law is, it must be correctly implemented by government functional departments at all levels in order to truly play its powerful normative role in ensuring food safety. If administrative law enforcement departments do not strictly enforce the law or misunderstand and apply food safety laws and regulations for various reasons, even if these laws and regulations are perfected, they will not produce the expected results. In today's food safety supervision, the problem of poor law enforcement is unavoidable. From some cases we know and study, it is not surprising that many food safety accidents are caused by dereliction of duty or poor law enforcement, coupled with local protectionism. Therefore, "disobeying laws, lax enforcement, and not investigating violations" has become a stubborn disease in the law enforcement of food safety supervision departments in China. The reason is nothing more than the weak understanding and application ability of law enforcement officers, the "human case" caused by various feelings and pressures, and some law enforcement officers abuse power for personal gain and local protection. To realize administration according to law, we must attach importance to the legal training and ideological and moral education of law enforcement personnel, formulate strict work discipline and internal examination and approval procedures, improve the accountability mechanism of administrative law enforcement personnel, establish a collective decision-making system for major cases, and continuously strengthen law enforcement supervision so as to implement laws and regulations.