Highlights of FDA Food Safety Efforts: Fruit Juice, Mercury In Fish

FDA Consumer, March, 2001 by Raymond Jr. Formanek

Strict rules for egg producers and makers of fruit or vegetable juices, and consumption limits for pregnant women and women considering pregnancy on fish containing high levels of mercury highlight a comprehensive food safety package issued by the Food and Drug Administration.

The vast majority of fruit and vegetable juices sold in the United States are pasteurized to kill potentially harmful bacteria during the manufacturing process. Juice processors who don't pasteurize their products now must take other germ-killing steps such as an ultraviolet light treatment or specially treating peels before squeezing citrus fruit for juice, according to a rule issued in January by FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN).

Unpasteurized fruit and vegetable juices have posed serious public health risks in recent years. Seventy people--including a child who died--became ill in 1996 after drinking unpasteurized apple juice contaminated by a strain of Escherichia coli bacteria. In 1999 and 2000, unpasteurized orange juice contaminated with salmonella bacteria sickened hundreds of people in the United States and three Canadian provinces. The 1999 outbreak contributed to one death.

Under the new rule, juice processors are required to follow Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles, a quality control system initially developed by NASA to prevent food-borne illnesses among astronauts. Manufacturers using HACCP systems conduct science-based analyses of food production processes, locate where the hazards can occur, take steps to prevent problems, and respond rapidly to problems. FDA inspectors will do spot-checks to ensure that the processors' HACCP systems are working.

Packaged unpasteurized juices produced and sold at retail establishments must carry a warning label under the new rule.

Large companies have a year from the publication of the regulation to implement HACCP programs. Small companies must comply within two years after publication, and roadside stands and other very small operations must comply within three years. The FDA estimates that between 16,000 and 48,000 juice-related illnesses occur in the United States each year.

For more on juice safety, see the FDA news release at www.cfsan.fda.gov/~Ird/ hhsjuic4.html.

Mercury, Fish and Pregnant Women

Pregnant women and women considering pregnancy should not eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel or tilefish because they could contain enough mercury to harm an unborn infant's nervous system, according to an FDA advisory.

The advisory says that young children and nursing women also should avoid those species of fish, which tend to live longer and have higher mercury concentrations in their tissues.

The National Academy of Sciences estimates that 60,000 children born each year might be exposed to levels of mercury during gestation high enough to potentially interfere with brain and nervous system development.

In its advisory, the FDA says that fish are an important source of protein and part of a healthful diet. Joseph Levitt, director of CFSAN, says pregnant women safely can eat 12 ounces of other types of cooked fish each week. Levitt says that it's important to eat a variety of other kinds of fish.

Mercury, a silvery element, occurs naturally. About half of environmental mercury occurs from vapors escaping from the earth's core. Most of the rest comes from smokestack emissions, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates under the Clean Air Act. The EPA estimates that solidwaste incinerators and coal-fired power plants are responsible for more than 80 percent of the man-made mercury emissions in the United States.

Bacteria in both fresh and salt water convert mercury into methylmercury, a toxic form that accumulates in fish.

CFSAN plans a comprehensive education program to reach pregnant women, women of childbearing age who may become pregnant, and their health-care providers concerning the hazard posed by methylmercury to the unborn child. As one of its priorities for fiscal year 2001, the center also will develop a public health strategy for future regulation of methylmercury in commercial seafood.

For more on the FDA advisory on methylmercury in fish, check out the FDA Talk Paper at www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/ tphgfish.html.

Listeria

The bacterium Listeria monocytogenes can be found nearly everywhere--soil, dust, sewage, and even water. It's tough too. It can thrive in hot, salty or acidic environments that are deadly to many other bacterial strains.

Even cold temperatures don't stop listeria, which can cause a potentially life-threatening disease called listeriosis. The bacterium continues to multiply--albeit more slowly--until temperatures reach zero degrees Fahrenheit. Most other foodborne bacteria stop growing at 40 F.

Researchers have known since the early 1900s that listeria infects animals, including birds and fish. The bacterium was recognized as a human pathogen in 1929. However, scientists didn't know that listeria could be spread through food as well as by animal contact until the early 1980s.