Safety and risk management

When we think of emergencies, most of us don't consider how they relate to food. This shows how little awareness we have of food defense and the many ways our nation's food security can be sabotaged. Raise awareness and stay informed by learning about FDA's projects to ensure our nation's food security by taking this course.

What are the common denominators in the examples?


In a nutshell, food defense is concerned with intentional and harmful attacks on food security.
These attacks are considered Intentional Adulterations (IA).
Intentional Adulterations have different faces and can be instigated by different parties.
It is driven by different motives as well! They can be done to:
harm or kill a large number of people,
mess with the economy to reap more profit,
destroy a brand, company, or industry, and
extort money from the company.


What are Intentional Adulterations (IA)?


Who are the agents of Intentional Adulteration (IA)?


Quick knowledge test!


Intentional adulteration can be driven by which motives?


Food Security

Food Defense  Plan Builder
Unpacking Your Toolbox


Vulnerability Assessments
This details the weak points and points for improvement of each type of manufactured, processed, packed, or handled food.


Mitigation Strategies
This is a proactive step in preventing and minimizing each product's vulnerabilities.
This has 4 steps: monitoring, correcting, verifying, and training.


Which of the following is not part of the Food Defense Plan Builder?


Facility Information
Product/Process Descriptions
Vulnerability Assessments
Mitigation Strategies
Food Defense Monitoring Procedures
Food Defense Corrective Actions Procedures
Food Defense Verification Procedures
Supporting Documents
Food Defense Plan Signatures


In summary, your  Food Defense Tool Kit   are as follows:


Food Protection

Let's test your skills.
This lesson entails a series of food emergency simulations from the official FDA's tabletop games about food emergencies!
Think wisely and act quickly, the future of the a lot of people are in your hands!


The County Sheriff's Department received a tip from an anonymous individual that a chemical powder used in envelopes was used to contaminate raw and finished products at XYZ Plant.


An Environmental Health Specialist was called to check the case, revealing that the contamination was intentional.


XYZ plant was informed of the situation and agreed to cease production of the said product until results were out.


Lab results identified the powder to be chlordane.
XYZ plant was asked to screen all of their products, vehicles, raw materials, finished products, and the draining system.


It was discovered that XYZ plant had no fence and was accessible from 4 sides, based on the layout.
The screening revealed traces of chlordane in multiple samples of raw product, trucks, and finished products.


Which of the following are possible suspects of the contamination incident?


CDC noticed a surge of E. Coli cases in several states. A multi-state conference call was done to discuss the situation.


It was determined that a cluster of illnesses including food histories related to E. Coli was found in 1 state.


An investigation was held and the following results were discovered:
The source of the E. Coli in 3 states were from fresh bagged spinach
The bagged spinach was associated as cause of the outbreak


The outbreak was also associated to one company:
The brands of bagged spinach were traced to ABC Processing Company
ABC Processing was associated with 100% of the contracts on three large farms with 13 individual fields.


Which is the strongest possible motivator for this adulteration?


A large event was held annually for three days at X City, Y State.
After three days, 4 similar cases were admitted to the hospital. The symptoms were vomiting, diarrhea, bloody stool, and respiratory distress.


The common denominator between these 4 patients was that they attended the same event.
The next day, 30 more patients were ushered to the hospital with the same symptoms.


Environmental health investigators and epidemiologists were dispatched to investigate the scene.
It turns out that 2 unlabeled containers with unknown powdery residue were found with the parmesan cheeses for pizzas.


It was estimated that 20,000 people were suspected to be exposed to the pizza with parmesan cheese.


Further investigation revealed that the unusual residue in the parmesan cheese was ricin.
The CDC Laboratory also confirms the presence of ricinine in the patients' urine samples.


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