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There is overwhelming evidence that dietary salt is a major cause of increased blood pressure. There is also a link between a high salt intake and risk of stroke, left ventricular hypertrophy, renal disease, obesity, renal stones and stomach cancer. Reduction of salt intake is efficacious and cost-effective. In developed countries, reduction in salt intake requires the participation of food industry.

Food safety has become an absolute necessity in all countries. As a result, Morocco has taken several measures and actions to develop food safety and food-borne disease control.This study aimed to highlight the level of improvement in the quality assurance of meat and meat products in Morocco.It is based on a non-exhaustive review of the regulatory texts governing food safety in the country, as well as a statistical study on establishments of meat and meat products adopting a self-checking system and approved by the National Office of Sanitary Safety of Food.Morocco has introduced several laws and regulations requiring sanitary control of food products. Also, the number of establishments of meat and meat products adopting a system of self-control and approved by the National Office of Sanitary Safety of Food has improved significantly. It has increased from 58 in 2007 to 273 in 2016.The adoption of self-monitoring systems allows better access to international markets, improved quality of food products and a considerable reduction in microbial contamination.

Inexperience, inadequate training and differential hazard exposure may contribute to a higher risk of injury in young workers. This study describes features of work-related injuries in young Canadians to identify areas for potential occupational injury prevention strategies.We analyzed records for youth aged 10-17 presenting to Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP) emergency departments (EDs) from 1991-2012. We classified work-related injuries into job groups corresponding to National Occupational Classification for Statistics 2006 codes and conducted descriptive analyses to assess injury profiles by job group. Age- and sex-adjusted proportionate injury ratios (PIRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to compare the nature of injuries between occupational and non-occupational events overall and by job group.Of the 6046 injuries (0.72% of events in this age group) that occurred during work, 63.9% were among males. Youth in food and beverage occupations (54.6% males) made up 35.4% of work-related ED visits and 10.2% of work-related hospital admissions, while primary industry workers (76.4% males) made up 4.8% of work-related ED visits and 24.6% of work-related hospital admissions. PIRs were significantly elevated for burns (9.77, 95% CI: 8.94-10.67), crushing/amputations (6.72, 95% CI: 5.79-7.80), electrical injuries (6.04, 95% CI: 3.64-10.00), bites (5.09, 95% CI: 4.47-5.79), open wounds (2.68, 95% CI: 2.59-2.78) and eye injuries (2.50, 95% CI: 2.20-2.83) in occupational versus non-occupational events. These were largely driven by high proportional incidence of injury types unique to job groups.Our findings provide occupation group-specific information on common injury types that can be used to support targeted approaches to reduce incidence of youth injury in the workplace.Accidents de travail impliquant des jeunes Canadiens : analyse de 22 années de surveillance des données recueillies à partir du Système canadien hospitalier d'information et de recherche en prévention des traumatismes.L’inexpérience, une formation inadéquate et une exposition accrue au danger sont susceptibles de contribuer à un risque plus élevé d’accidents chez les jeunes travailleurs. Cette étude décrit les caractéristiques des accidents de travail impliquant de jeunes Canadiens afin d’identifier les secteurs pour lesquels élaborer des stratégies de prévention en matière d’accidents de travail.Nous avons analysé le dossier des jeunes de 10 à 17 ans qui se sont présentés à un service des urgences (SU) faisant partie du Système canadien hospitalier d’information et de recherche en prévention des traumatismes (SCHIRPT) entre 1991 et 2012. Nous avons classé les accidents de travail en fonction de groupes d’emploi correspondant à la Classification nationale des professions (codes statistiques 2006) et nous avons effectué des analyses descriptives afin d’établir le profil des accidents en fonction de ces groupes d’emploi. Nous avons calculé des rapports proportionnels de blessures (RPB) en fonction de l’âge et du sexe ainsi que des intervalles de confiance à 95 % pour comparer la nature des blessures survenues en contexte professionnel et en contexte non professionnel, à la fois dans l’ensemble et par groupe d’emploi.Parmi les 6 046 blessures ayant eu lieu au travail (0,72 % des cas dans ce groupe d’âge), 63,9 % touchaient des garçons. Les jeunes (54,6 % de garçons) œuvrant dans l’industrie des aliments et des boissons ont formé 35,4 % des consultations aux SU en lien avec le travail et 10,2 % des admissions liées au travail, alors que les travailleurs du secteur primaire (76,4 % de garçons) représentaient 4,8 % des consultations aux SU liées au travail et 24,6 % des admissions liées au travail. Les RPB ont été significativement élevés pour les brûlures (9,77, IC à 95 % : 8,94 à 10,67), les blessures par écrasement et les amputations (6,72, IC à 95 % : 5,79 à 7,80), les blessures causées par l’électricité (6,04, IC à 95 % : 3,64 à 10,00), les morsures (5,09, IC à 95 % : 4,47 à 5,79), les plaies ouvertes (2,68, IC à 95 % : 2,59 à 2,78) et les lésions oculaires (2,50, IC à 95 % : 2,20 à 2,83) dans un contexte professionnel par rapport aux cas en contexte non professionnel. Ceci s’explique en bonne partie par l’incidence proportionnelle élevée de certains types de blessures spécifiques à des groupes d’emploi.Nos conclusions fournissent des renseignements relatifs à certains groupes professionnels sur des types de blessures courantes susceptibles de favoriser l’adoption d’approches ciblées à l’égard de la réduction de l’incidence des blessures chez les jeunes en milieu de travail.

Conference on Sustainable Diet and Food Security, 2013/05/28-29, Lille (France); International audience; The stark observation of the co-existence of undernourishment, nutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity, the triple burden of malnutrition, is inviting us to reconsider health and nutrition as the primary goal and final endpoint of food systems. Agriculture and the food industry have made remarkable advances in the past decades. However, their development has not entirely fulfilled health and nutritional needs, and moreover, they have generated substantial collateral losses in agricultural biodiversity. Simultaneously, several regions are experiencing unprecedented weather events caused by climate change and habitat depletion, in turn putting at risk global food and nutrition security. This coincidence of food crises with increasing environmental degradation suggests an urgent need for novel analyses and new paradigms. The sustainable diets concept proposes a research and policy agenda that strives towards a sustainable use of human and natural resources for food and nutrition security, highlighting the preeminent role of consumers in defining sustainable options and the importance of biodiversity in nutrition. Food systems act as complex social–ecological systems, involving multiple interactions between human and natural components. Nutritional patterns and environment structure are interconnected in a mutual dynamic of changes. The systemic nature of these interactions calls for multidimensional approaches and integrated assessment and simulation tools to guide change. This paper proposes a review and conceptual modelling framework that articulate the synergies and tradeoffs between dietary diversity, widely recognised as key for healthy diets, and agricultural biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions, crucial resilience factors to climate and global changes.

A national survey showed that Swiss people eat high quantity of salt (9.1 g per day on average). The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has launched a strategy to reduce salt intake in the population in order to decrease cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, mainly via blood pressure reduction. The most effective public health measures are to reduce the salt content of processed food rich in salt because they do not need to change consumers' eating behaviours. The FOPH has chosen to collaborate with the food industry on a voluntary basis. Regular population-based surveys will be needed to monitor the impact of current measures on salt consumption, hypertension prevalence as well as cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in the years to come.

Conflicts of interest between the food industry and public decision makers have increasingly multiplied over the last few years, especially within the context of implementing the French National Nutrition Programme. This paper describes the rhetoric and the strategies developed by the private sector in order to counter the law's implementation and enforcement based on a concrete example, namely, the removal of vending machines from schools. After having evoked possibilities of developing new partnerships as suggested by national and international health authorities, it reaffirms the right and the duty of the State to regulate within the framework of a health promotion policy, an approach which integrates the necessary open democratic public debate between the different sectors.

The prevalence of food allergy varies between 1 and 8% and depends on age, countries, symptoms and allergens. Main food allergens remain peanut, nuts, egg, cow milk, wheat, soybeans and fish. However, novel food industrial processes have induced new food allergies. Some are related to unusual components, like lupine seeds or flour or to modified food, like wheat or soybean isolates. Other unexpected allergies are due to residues of strong allergens--like peanut or egg--which are present in very small amounts in processed food. Swiss and european legislation have edicted lists of allergenic foods which have to be specified to the consumers. However, the legislation remains still incomplete and labelling of novel food components or modified allergens as well as as trace allergens is still far from being exhautive.

Twenty-five years after the beggining of the policies of adjustment and liberalization which is the situation of the food crops in the countries of the Sahel? The balance-sheet is approached by contrasting the cereals sub sector, facing to a very strong control by the State, and the onion whose growth is related to the increase in the demand of the great urban centers. The increase in the production of cereals was accompanied by deep changes in the structures. The market became more efficient and better integrated on a regional scale. But, the level and the instability of the prices of cereals increased, making difficult the provisioning of the poor. Clear differences in trajectories appear. Mali, which implemented a policy of reforming cereals market and successful the revival of rice sector, must manage at the same time the improvement of the competitiveness of its cereals and the access to cereals of the low incomes consumers. Niger must face the increase in the vulnerability of a great part of the rural households. The production of onion experienced a spectacular increase in Senegal after the devaluation of franc FCA in response to the urban market. That of Niger intended mainly for the close countries progressed more slowly. But in both cases, the regulation of the European onion imports constitutes a paramount stake.

The development of health claims for food is driven by a strong industrial impetus and by consumer demand. From the regulatory point of view, the European legislation is fragmented; food and health legislations are contradictory on some aspects. National authorities carry out the regulation of health claims for food according to their own rules. A more comprehensive and harmonized approach within the European Community will be provided by the European regulation currently under discussion between the European Commission and the Parliament. Nevertheless, its final adoption and its implementation will take time. In addition, it won't solve the difficulties related to the assessment of the scientific substantiation of these claims. The role of health authorities in the implementation of rules regarding the safety of consumers remains unadressed.

From July 2000 to July 2001, the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) system was implemented to the benefit of the traditional sandwich production in Phnom Penh City Sandwiches were initially analyzed for bacterial indicators among 6 large-scale producers during a 2 months period. In the second stage of the study, two selected producers were involved in the HACCP process. Microbiological analyses revealed a poor sanitary quality of samples from all the production lines tested. Implementation of HACCP method resulted in a reduction of microbial contamination, but this decrease was not significant compared with others steps of HACCP process (chi2 test for trend, p0.05). HACCP system was well accepted by producers but routine practices and wrong perception by production-line workers did limit the success of the process. A regulation on the mass catering sector should be part of a large strategy of food safety and environmental health in the city.

The agricultural and food professions are those that touch agriculture, but also the restoration, the kitchens, and the employees of slaughterhouses. Various occupational skin diseases touch these salaried employees or craftsmen: eczemas or contact hives with plants or meats and fleshes of animals and all chemical substances that are added: pesticides, food additives and various preservatives. Irritation contact dermatitis or real skin burns are observed with housekeeping products imposed by the sanitary norms, increasingly powerful, but as increasingly caustic. Infectious illnesses transmitted from the animal to the man are sometimes observed especially among the breeders and employees of slaughterhouses.

The scientific understanding of the relationship between diet and disease has progressed greatly in the past decades. With this growing scientific evidence supporting the important role of diet in modifying the risks of some chronic diseases, there is increasing consumer and marketing interest in nutrition and health. The Health Products and Food Branch has been actively involved in this issue through both policy and regulatory development and extensive public and scientific consultations. Feedback from the public consultations has been generally supportive of scientifically valid diet-related health claims for foods but mixed with regard to product-specific claims. Health Canada is moving ahead in this regard to find a solution that best matches public needs and legal constraints. Following two years of consultation, Health Canada published a policy recommendation on health claims for foods in November 1998. The policy recommended that structure/ function and risk reduction claims be permitted for foods, and that the claims may be generic or product-specific. The definition of a drug in the Food and Drugs Act is far-reaching as it includes any substance(s) manufactured, sold or represented for use in the prevention or treatment of disease or in modifying organic function. This means foods bearing risk reduction claims or many structure/function claims would likely fall within the definition of a drug. In addition, subsections 3 (1) and 3 (2) of the Food and Drugs Act prohibit the sale of a food or a drug that is advertised to the general public or labelled as a treatment, preventative or cure of any of the diseases listed in Schedule A to the Act. Schedule A lists many of the major diet-related chronic diseases. It should be noted that this prohibition of treatment / prevention claims for these diseases applies even if the claims are true. Section 3 dates from 1934 and was intended to protect the public at a time when there were no effective treatments for many diseases. To enable the use of risk reduction claims for foods, another Section of the Food and Drugs Act was applied. Section 30 of the Act allows the Governor-in-Council to make regulations exempting any food or drug from the provisions of the Act. Under this authority, foods bearing a diet-related health claim could be exempted from the prohibition contained in Section 3 and the provisions related to drugs provided certain conditions are met. To provide more opportunities for communicating information about the role of diet in disease, risk reduction, and the health benefits of foods to consumers in labelling and advertising, Health Canada has proposed five generic health claims for adoption in Canada. This followed an initial review of the issues and extensive review of the scientific basis of the proposed claims. The five generic health claims are: 1. “A healthy diet containing foods high in potassium and low in sodium may reduce the risk of high blood pressure, a risk factor for stroke and heart disease.”

HACCP is intended to make food protection programs evolve from a mainly retrospective quality control toward a preventative quality assurance approach and to provide an increased confidence in food safety. In parallel, the continuous evolution of quality concepts in the food industry resulted in the development of quality systems and quality assurance techniques with regard to the EN 29,000 (ISO 9000) series of standards. Specific to the food industry, HACCP can be seen as a very effective method to prepare specific Safety Assurance Plans (cf. the quality assurance plan concept) within a quality systems approach (Jouve, 1993). By reference to ISO 8402, a Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) basically sets out "the specific quality practices, resources and sequence of activities relevant to a particular product, service, contract or project". Quality assurance plans are more particularly useful for projects relating to new products or processes and/or comprising inter-related tasks whose interaction may be complex. In addition, in contractual or regulatory situations, such plans can be used to demonstrate the supplier's capability to meet identified objectives, specification or standards. In the food industry, the management of safety is a critical and complex issue which fits very well in the scope of application of a specific QAP; it is also where the use of HACCP is otherwise recommended by priority.