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<< back to the 2000 archive listing << Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation Quotations From Jack, June 2000 If you are not involved in your local affiliate, I encourage you to take
an active role As President of IAFP I had the opportunity to visit the Korea, Carolinas and British Columbia affiliates over the past few months. All three have great promise of growing and increasing the value of their organizations for their members. In Korea I participated in an all-day symposium discussing their food safety system. This system is undergoing many changes as their economy grows and food export and import becomes more important. The changes they are experiencing are not unlike those in the United States. In simple terms, the old way of doing things needs to change with new demands. Government, industry and academia need to find new ways to work together to achieve common food safety goals. The Korean affiliate provides a valuable forum for its members to meet and share information that will help them reach those goals. My thanks to the affiliate, especially Dr. Deog-Hwan Oh, Dr. Jong-Hyun Park and Dr. Kook Hee Kang for their hospitality and introduction to Korean culture and cuisine. The Carolinas meeting addressed HACCP and its application in various segments of the food system. Speakers covered retail, food processing and dairy applications of HACCP. It was particularly interesting to me to see the differences in HACCP between the retail and dairy segments. In retail there are complexities of many menu items being prepared everyday resulting in no one system fitting best. In dairy we have an industry that has operated under strict command and control regulations for decades trying to cope with the less prescriptive concepts of HACCP (e.g., how do you design a HACCP system where extensive regulations cover the details already?). My thanks to Program Chairperson, Beth Johnson and CAMFES President Susan Grayson for their invitation and hospitality. The British Columbia affiliate held their first annual speakers evening. Mrs. Anne Nickerson described her young daughter's infection with E. coli O157:H7, which included full-blown HUS. Mrs. Nickerson believes her daughter got the infection from eating a meat product. She made a powerful argument for all of us to work together to prevent such devastating infections from occurring. I spoke on what we are learning about foodborne illness and the new and emerging pathogens and vehicles. A lively question and answer period followed. Thanks to Clive Kingsbury, President, and the British Columbia affiliate for their invitation and the opportunity to see beautiful Vancouver. To conclude I would like to congratulate these affiliates on conducting excellent meetings! I was honored to be a part of them. If you are not involved in your local affiliate, I encourage you to take an active role. The affiliate meetings cover some of the same topics that are covered at the IAFP Annual Meeting. Therefore, if you are not able to take advantage of going to the Annual Meeting, your local affiliate meeting is a great opportunity to keep up-to-date on current food safety issues. To find out more about an affiliate in your area, contact an affiliate officer listed on page 440. |