ECSAFESEAFOOD

"Priority environmental contaminants in seafood: safety assessment, impact and public perception"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Seafood has been recognized as a high quality, healthy and safe food item. Yet, some seafood can accumulate environmental contaminants with potential impact on human health. Limited information is available for those without maximum limits set by authorities for seafood, like priority contaminants, biotoxins from harmful algal blooms and marine litter. In order to increase seafood safety to consumers and reduce human health risks, ECsafeSEAFOOD aims to assess safety issues mainly related to non-regulated priority contaminants and evaluate their impact on public health.

ECsafeSEAFOOD addresses these objectives with eight work packages (WPs) targeting priority environmental contaminants, including biotoxins from harmful algal blooms and marine litter. WP1 will elaborate a database with relevant information required for risk assessment gathered from literature and national monitoring programmes. WP2 will monitor contaminants in seafood using an ambitious sampling strategy following the recommendations of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (Descriptor 9) and assess the effect of seafood processing/cooking on contaminants. In WP3, risk assessment (with data from WP1-2) and mitigation strategies will be implemented to reduce the impact of risky contaminants on human health. WP4 will develop fast screening/detection methods for relevant contaminants tailored to suit stakeholders needs to promote consumers’ confidence in seafood. WP5 will carry out the toxicological characterization of contaminated seafood in realistic conditions and will use alternative toxicological methods to provide tools for the risk assessment (WP3). WP6 will assess the links between the level of contaminants in the environment and that in seafood through controlled trials and case-study species, taking into account the effect of climate changes. WP7 details a strategy for education, training with clear and practical dissemination of results. WP8 will ensure efficient project management.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about the availability of safe and high-quality seafood. An EU initiative is evaluating the potential impact of seafood contaminants on health in order to increase safety and mitigate health risks.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Water pollution is calling into question the condition of marine environments and their effect on seafood safety and public health. The links between levels of contaminants in water sources and levels in seafood are not yet fully understood. More research is needed on the transmission of contaminants from bodies of water to seafood.

With EU funding, the 'Priority environmental contaminants in seafood: Safety assessment, impact and public perception' (http://www.ecsafeseafood.eu/ecsafeseafood-homepage-2 (ECSAFESEAFOOD)) project is addressing the challenge of evaluating seafood safety issues concerning contaminants that may be present because of environmental pollution. It is also assessing the influence these contaminants have on humans so as to enhance seafood risk management and spread public awareness.

During the first reporting period, project partners set up an online database with relevant information about contaminants from existing literature and national monitoring programmes. Contaminants were then classified, ranked and prioritised according to seafood concentration levels and toxicity. Based on this information, researchers have selected for analysis the main chemicals that pose a potential risk for the European seafood consumer.

A sampling strategy was implemented to collect, process and distribute samples of contaminants to project members for assessment. The suitability of freeze-dried samples for all methods of analysis was verified, and contaminants in freeze-dried samples were tested.

A pan-European survey has been conducted in Belgium, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Portugal to better understand consumer preferences and concerns regarding seafood safety.

The team has begun developing new tools to make assessment of the existence of environmental contaminants in seafood products easier and faster. It has also started testing the toxicological impact of previously identified contaminants in selected seafood products.

ECSAFESEAFOOD will ultimately minimise health risks, boost confidence in seafood shoppers and encourage responsible consumption across Europe.