Rahael calls for Caricom food laws

CARICOM NATIONS must implement national food laws as part of a regional food safety system which will protect the region and its people from the socio-economic dangers posed by food-borne diseases. This was the suggestion advanced by Health Minister John Rahael on Sunday when he addressed the opening of a four-day regional workshop at the Hilton Trinidad for strengthening and coordination of food-borne disease surveillance in support of food safety programmes in the Caribbean.

Rahael told the gathering that the harm which food-borne diseases inflict on the health of individuals, agriculture, trade and tourism is well known. “Annual reported cases of food-borne illnesses in our region between 1989 and 2002 increased by more than 300 percent. The incidence of gastrointestinal illness in children under five years old almost doubled during the seven-year period 1993 to 2000, and increased by more than 300 percent during 1994 to 2000 in persons over five years old,” the Minister stated. Rahael observed that in cases recorded in 18 English-speaking Caribbean nations, out of 70 outbreaks due to emerging and re-emerging infections which occurred between 1990 and 2003, 40 percent were bacterial and “more than half of these bacterial infections were food-borne diseases due to Salmonella.”

He said a recent survey by British tour operators said most outbreaks in the Caribbean could be linked with poor food safety practices, with between 11 percent and 58 percent having to curtail their holiday activities. Additionally, in 2003, there were food-borne disease outbreaks on at least ten cruise ships in our region. Rahael referred to one outbreak which affected a Tobago hotel, resulting in financial and job loss and “some erosion of international confidence in the tourism plans for Tobago,” and a case of contaminated water which caused a hotel in Bermuda to close after it was faced with a US$75 million lawsuit. “I leave you to do the math when you consider that the average estimated cost of each case was US$52,” he said.

The Minister said all of these cases strengthen the need to implement effective food safety systems throughout the region. He said studies in the US show such systems are more efficient once they are based on “a national food law which is clear, rational and scientifically sound. It must include surveillance and monitoring activities which serve as a basis for risk  analysis. The system must receive also adequate funding to carry out the major functions required,” Rahael declared.

He advised participants not to limit their deliberations to food-borne diseases but “should also zero in on nutrition, food quality, labelling and education.” Rahael also noted that food is a major contributor to modern epidemics of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and many cancers, and Trinidad and Tobago “has the highest death rate from diabetes and heart disease in the Americas,” the Minister said. “Therefore, this bolsters my hope for greater collaboration in promoting actions from farm to table that will see a reduction in these diseases,” the Minister declared.