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Food Protection Trends COMMENTARY from the Executive Director “IAFP is moving fast into the
international food safety arena” How international should IAFP be? This is a question that is asked often by Members, Staff and Board. Up to 2005, it was a question that normally was answered with, “we don’t have the financial resources to play in the international arena!” Preceding our first, truly inter- national meeting held in Prague in 2005; IAFP was international in name only. The Association began as an international association back in 1911. Before 2005, we were international only because we accepted members from outside of the United States or North America. Over the past 10 years, your Executive Board became extremely interested in expanding activities outside of North America. Because of financial considerations and world events, it took until 2005 to establish this effort. Now that it has begun, things are moving very fast! It began with a joint effort with the International Life Sciences Institute’s European Branch (ILSI-Europe). We planned a joint work-shop with ILSI-Europe that was held in Prague. Along with this, IAFP held its first European Symposium. As that event was taking place, our attendees asked the question,“where is next year’s European meeting going to be held?” Honestly, the first symposium was “experimental” to test the waters. It took a little time, but the Executive Board did decide to hold a Second European Symposium and it took place in Barcelona in 2006. After the success in Barcelona, the Executive Board agreed to now hold a symposium each year in Europe. So the third symposium was last October in Rome. Now, we have confirmed the location for our Fourth European Symposium on Food Safety which will be held 19–21 November 2008 in Lisbon, Portugal. The program is still in development with speakers being confirmed, but you can plan now to attend this all-important symposium to meet the leaders in European food safety. As the European Symposium has been developing over these past few years, IAFP continued to look for opportunities to expand our international network of food safety professionals. One opportunity which we could not pass by was to become involved with the China International Food Safety & Quality Conference (CIFSQ). The first conference was held last September in Beijing and IAFP received great exposure to more than 1,000 conference attendees. With that success, the Executive Board was quick to pledge IAFP’s support to the conference organizers for the 2009 CIFSQ to be held 24–25 September 2008, again in Beijing. More recently, we established a working relationship with the Dubai International Food Safety Conference (DIFSC). Pete Snyder, a long-time IAFP Member was a speaker at the conference in 2007 and suggested to the organizers that they may want to coordinate with IAFP on future conference programs. For 2008, as the first part of this effort, the organizers invited me to attend the DIFSC this past February. I was able to serve as the session convenor on day two and brought increased focus to IAFP in doing so. This conference, now in its third year, attracted more than 1,000 attendees. We look forward to working more closely with the organizers for DIFSC 2009! The China and Dubai meetings are not directly IAFP meetings, but they offer IAFP the opportunity to reach an audience that we probably would not be able to reach for many more years. Both are great sources of information for food safety professionals in their regions. In addition to these meetings, IAFP, in conjunction with our Brazil Affiliate and ICMSF organized our first “International Symposium on Food Safety” that will be held 26–28 May 2008. Maria Teresa Destro and her colleagues Bernadette Franco and Mariza Landgraf have prepared the program, arranged for the facility and handled all logistics for the upcoming symposium. Because of the facility, we will be limited to 400 attendees and all indications show that it will be a sold out event! This meeting will move from location to location each year, so for 2009 we are looking to hold the “International Symposium” in a Pacific Rim country. As you can see, IAFP is moving fast into the international food safety arena. One change we made a year ago has made IAFP Membership much more attractive to potential Members from outside of the United States. With our Member-ship dues restructure, anyone from anyplace in the world can join IAFP for just $50! Fifty Dollars to belong to the leading professional food safety organization in the world!!! That is a price that most everyone can afford. If a person is interested in research articles from the Journal of Food Protection, online access can be added for only $36. More than fourteen years of searchable JFP articles, plus IAFP Membership for less than $90 – that cannot be beat. If you communicate with colleagues around the world, let them know of this fantastic value. Let them know about IAFP and the great work we are doing globally. Chances are, you can encourage them to become an IAFP Member and they will have access to information that can assist them in making change to their public health systems. They can join you and other IAFP Members in “Advancing Food Safety Worldwide ®”. So, how international should IAFP be? As an international association, you can see that your Executive Board has committed to making IAFP a visible leader in food safety all around the world! Help do your part to expand IAFP’s worldwide efforts. You will be glad you did.
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