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Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation

My Perspective, November 2000

Did you know that...
By Jenny Scott, IAFP President

o IAFP began as the International Association of Dairy and Milk Inspectors in 1911?
o In 1923 the Association endorsed pasteurization as "the only adequate safeguard for milk supplies?"
o The first Annual Meeting held outside the United States was the 1927 Annual Meeting in Toronto?
o The Journal of Food Protection began as the Journal of Milk Technology in 1938?
o The IAFP Awards program began in 1952 with the Citation and the Sanitarian awards?
o The Association's first offices were in a remodeled poultry house in Shelbyville, Indiana?
o The Annual Meeting did not have exhibits until 1986?
o Ann Draughon became the first woman President in 1995?
o Helene Uhlman was the first woman in the United States to be a certified milk inspector in the Grade "A" Milk Program?
o Efforts were made throughout the '70s to merge the Association with the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA)?

These and many more interesting facts about our Association can be found in the International Association for Food Protection History 1911-2000. At the 1999 Annual Meeting in Dearborn, President Jack Guzewich called for this history to be prepared. With the assistance of several Past Presidents and long-time Members, the IAFP staff pulled together a chronicle of events of the Association, from its beginning with a small group of men who cared deeply about improving the nation's milk supply to its current status as one of the world's most recognized groups of food safety professionals.

Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle about the problems in the nation's meat supply at the turn of the 19th century; he could easily have written a sequel about the nation's milk supply. Milk was frequently watered down, it was often produced under very insanitary conditions, and it carried numerous diseases - typhoid fever, diphtheria, scarlet fever, tuberculosis and more. Contaminated milk was a significant cause of infant mortality.

The history of this Association is intimately associated with the history of milk safety, and with the focus of the Association expanding from milk to other foods, the history of food safety will be wrapped into our Association's history. The History was provided to interested attendees at the Annual Meeting. I hope those of you who picked up a copy have read it. I urge all of you to get a copy of this book (it's only 50 pages - contact David Tharp at IAFP) and read about our Association - you won't be sorry. And let's all thank Jack for being interested enough in IAFP's roots to ask for this to be put together.

For some more recent history, take a look through this month's edition of Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation, where you will find the "history" of IAFP 2000 - the first meeting of the Association under its new name, the International Association for Food Protection. You'll find the minutes of Committee and Professional Development Group (PDG) meetings, minutes from the business meeting, the Board meeting highlights, and, of course, pictures. As I noted in last month's column, we had a record number of attendees at this year's meeting. Yet we're still small enough that the meeting provides an excellent opportunity to network with other professionals in the field of food safety.

The History of the Association shows how we changed with each decade of the 19th century. The Association changed because its Members needed and asked for the changes. But in order for the Association to know what our Members' needs are, Members need to speak up. One way to do that is through our Committees and PDGs. As you can see from the minutes, we have a number of active groups. One of the ways these groups let us know their needs is through the organization of symposia for our Annual Meeting - these are topics they feel we need to hear about. Other Committees have seen the need to develop informative manuals for the Membership (e.g., the Procedures to Investigate Foodborne Illness, which I consider to be one of the most useful publications available) and articles for Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation. Our Journal Management Committees let us know about changes related to the journals (a recommendation has been made to include the table of contents of the Journal of Food Protection each month in Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation; this has been approved by the Board). So participate in Committee and PDG meetings and let your needs be known.

There are other ways to be heard, too. The Board and the staff of IAFP welcome all input - information on how to contact us can be found in the front of each issue of Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation. Do you have suggestions for improving our journals? For enhancing the annual meeting? Is there some topic you'd like to see covered in a journal article or at the meeting? Let us know. We'll see that the right people get the message. We're your Association - we want to meet your needs.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Thanks Jack.

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