Food Safety Interventions and Food Attribution Workshop
Decatur, Georgia, April 26 and 27, 2005
Presenters, Chairs and Organizers
Bob Adak is Head, Environmental and Enteric Diseases Department, HPA Centre for Infections. Bob Adak graduated in microbiology from Imperial College London and has postgraduate qualifications in toxicology and microbiology from the University of Birmingham and the University of Surrey. He has worked at CDSC since 1989 on both surveillance and research into the epidemiology of salmonellas, Campylobacter sp., Vero-cytotoxin Escherichia coli O157, norovirus and the development of models for measuring the burden of foodborne infections. In addition he has been heavily involved in designing and conducting investigations into recent national outbreaks of foodborne disease. Bob has also served on World Health Organisation expert groups on enterohaemorrhagic E. coli and the burden of foodborne disease. Before working for the HPA, Bob worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital on a study on cerebral palsy in London Children. He also spent three years working for the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food on the development of methods for the detection of toxins in foodstuffs.
Dell M. Allen graduated with a BS in Agriculture from Kansas State University in 1961, an MS in Agriculture from the University of Idaho in 1963, and a PhD in Animal Husbandry from Michigan State University in 1966. He then served on the faculty at Kansas State University for 22 years, where he had a teaching and research appointment. While at KSU, he directed the KSU Meat Laboratory, coached the meat judging team for 13 years which provided him the opportunity to visit meat plants extensively. In 1977 and 78, he was contracted by the U.S. General Accounting Office to do a nationwide study on the uniformity of beef carcass grading across the nation. In 1980, he took a leave of absence from KSU to work at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the Law & Compliance Department. In 1988, he joined Excel Corporation, rising through various levels to serve as its Vice President of Technical Services and Food Safety where he was responsible for the company's food safety and quality standards for 20 plants with over 25,000 employees. His leadership in food safety issues, including serving on the USDA's Meat & Poultry Advisory Committee and the industry sponsored Beef Industry Food Safety Council, have put Excel, now known as Cargill Meat Solutions, in the forefront of systems to improve food safety. While at Cargill/Excel, Dr. Allen reached out to consumer advocacy groups, conducting facility tours of Excel plants for several of them and for elected officials and their staff that have been critical of the industry. He has spoken at many major food safety conferences, and collaborated in many high profile efforts to work with the Department, the broader industry from the farm to the fork, and with consumer advocates. He has been recognized with awards by many groups, most recently having received the Scientific Achievement Award from the American Meat Institute, the E. Floyd Forbes Award from the National Meat Association, and the Howard Baughman Food Safety Award from the FSIS-USDA. Dr. Allen retired from Cargill/Excel as Vice President of Technical Services and Food Safety in April of 2004. He resides with his wife Joyce in Derby, Kansas. Since retirement, he has worked as a consultant and serves as Editor at Large for Meat Marketing and Technology magazine.
Sean Altekruse is Deputy Executive Associate in the Office of Policy, Food Safety Inspection Service. He is Board Certified in Veterinary Preventive Medicine and received his D.V.M. from the University of Georgia, M.P.H. from University of South Carolina, and Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University of Maryland. Prior to his current position, he worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and at the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, D.C.
Fred Angulo is chief of the FoodNet/NARMS Unit, Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This Unit includes 28 members including commissioned corps officers and involves programs including the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), the WHO Global Salm-Surv, and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Collaboration on Studies of Burden of Foodborne Diseases. In addition to his responsibilities at the CDC, he has an adjunct appointment with Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. He is a member of two national advisory committees, four interagency working groups, and twelve WHO consultations. He has authored more than 100 manuscripts, chapters, or letters in the medical literature including New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Journal of Infectious Diseases, and Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Michael Batz is a Research Associate with the Resources for the Future. Batz's research interests include the application of computer modeling methods to environmental and human health issues. Specific interests include creating risk analysis tools for foodborne disease, valuing human health impacts from environmental risks, applying game theoretic and empirical modeling to spatial landuse decisions such as farming and conservation, and improving regulatory decision making through risk analysis and the quantitative treatment of uncertainty. Batz received a B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy, as well as an M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from Carnegie Mellon University.
Michael Doyle is a Regents Professor of Food Microbiology and Director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. He is an active researcher in the area of food safety and security and works closely with the food industry on issues related to the microbiological safety of foods. Dr. Doyle is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he received his B.S. degree in Bacteriology, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Food Microbiology. He serves on food safety committees of many scientific organizations and has served as a scientific advisor to many groups, including the World Health Organization, the Institute of Medicine, International Life Sciences Institute-North America, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has more than 500 scientific publications and has given more than 500 invited presentations at national and international scientific meetings. In addition, he has received several research awards from academic and national scientific organizations, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the International Association for Food Protection and the Institute of Food Technologists, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences-Institute of Medicine.
Leon Gorris is currently employed by Unilever and is also a part-time professor holding the European Chair in Food Safety Microbiology at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. He is a member of the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF). Leon Gorris received his Ph.D. in Microbiology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands). Before joining Unilever in 1998, he worked at the Agrotechnological Research Institute (Wageningen, The Netherlands). Within Unilever's Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC) located in the United Kingdom, he heads a multidisciplinary department of experts in the Risk Analysis Group. Areas of expertise include preservation microbiology, food safety assurance, risk assessment & risk management.
Chuck Hofacre is presently Professor in the Department of Avian Medicine at The University of Georgia. He received his D.V.M. in 1984 from The Ohio State University and his Ph.D. in 1992 from The University of Georgia. His research interests are associated with preharvest food safety and antimicrobial resistance. He has served on the National Poultry Improvement Plan's governing board and chaired the American Association of Avian Pathologist's Committee on Food Safety, the U.S. Animal Health Association's Committee on Feed Safety, and the American Veterinary Medical Association's Food Safety Committee. In addition, he has also served on the U.S. Delegation to the Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Codex Task Force on Animal Feeding and has been a member of 2 American Academy of Microbiology Colloquiums, "The Role of Antimicrobials in Agriculture" and "Preharvest Food Safety and Security".
Sandy Hoffman is a Fellow with Resources for the Future. She has a Ph.D. from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., she practiced law with McKenna, Conner and Cuneo in Washington, D.C. where she specialized in pesticide and chemical manufacture regulatory law. Her research at RFF focuses on the economics of public policy affecting health risks, including food safety regulation, pesticide regulation, and water quality. She looks at both regulatory and common law approaches to managing health risk. She has worked on Food Safety Consortium research projects, including development of a comparative food safety pathogen risk-ranking model. Hoffmann is co-editor of Tools for Improving Federal Food Safety Priority Setting, a joint effort aimed at developing a practical approach to promoting a more global riskbased approach to regulatory decision making in the U.S. food safety system. She is part of a team of researchers working to develop comparative risk ranking models of the U.S. food system. Hoffmann has a long-standing interest in the regional economic impact of environmental and natural resource policy. She has evaluated the impact of old-growth policy on rural California and developed a computable general equilibrium model of the state's economy for the California Department of Energy.
Randal Huffman is currently Vice President of Scientific Affairs at the American Meat Institute (AMI) Foundation. He joined AMI in January 2000. He manages the AMI Foundation's food safety research agenda, assists members in finding solutions to food safety and quality challenges and serves as the liaison between AMI and various scientific organizations. The AMI Foundation funds research on E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella control both on the farm and within processing facilities as well as research aimed at reducing Listeria monocytogenes in Ready-to-Eat meat products. Among various responsibilities, Randy has been a part of a AMIF-led Listeria Intervention and Control Task Force and the Beef Processing Best Practices Task Force that have developed and conducted multiple in-depth training workshops for industry and government. Prior to joining AMIF, Huffman was director of technical services at Koch Industries, Inc., in Wichita, KS, where he managed food safety and product development issues. Earlier in his career, he served as Vice President of Technical Services at Fairbank Farms in Ashville, NY. Huffman received a B.S. in animal science from Auburn University in Auburn, AL; an M.S. in animal science from the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, and a Ph.D. in meat science from the University of Florida.
Helen H. Jensen is Professor of Economics and head of the food and nutrition policy research division in the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University. Her major areas of research are food and nutrition policies, food security and the economics of food safety and food hazard control options. In CARD, she leads a research program on economics of food programs and policies, including food safety. Her research addresses the implications of changes in the design of food programs and food safety regulations. She recently served as chair of the Food Safety and Nutrition Section of the American Agricultural Economics Association, and is currently serving on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences including the Institute of Medicine's committee on redesign of the Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Food Program, the National Research Council's Committee on Countering Agricultural Bioterrorism, and on their committee on animal health and disease. Dr. Jensen holds a masters degree in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. degree in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin.
Janelle Kause specializes in the field of risk assessment and food safety. She currently serves as the Director of the Risk Assessment Division within the Food Safety and Inspection Service, Office of Public Health Science. She has worked on several FSIS risk assessments including, the E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef, updated Salmonella spp. in egg products and Salmonella Enteritidis in shell eggs, C. perfringens in ready-to-eat and partially cooked meat and poultry products, and FDA-FSIS Listeria risk ranking risk assessments. From 2002-2003, Ms. Kause served as the lead for the FSIS Listeria risk assessment cleared through the Office of Management and Budget to inform the FSIS interim final rule for Listeria. Ms. Kause has also developed and implemented practices in FSIS to further target risk assessments to provide practical and useful information to risk managers. These practices have become part of FSIS Risk Analysis Standard Operating Procedures. Ms. Kause has served on the International Life Sciences Institute workgroups on risk assessments. She currently serves as the lead for the Interagency Risk Assessment Consortium workgroup on peer review of food safety risk assessments. Ms. Kause holds a dual Masters in Public Health and Masters in Public Policy in the area of risk policy from the University of Michigan.
J. Glenn Morris, Jr. is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is board certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases. He has authored 19 textbook chapters and 127 articles in peer reviewed journals, with continuous federal grant funding since 1984; his scholarly contributions were recognized by election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1996. He has served on three National Academy of Sciences expert committees dealing with food safety, and, from 1994-1996, worked with the Food Safety Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, on the first major revision of food safety regulations since 1906. During this time he served as Director of the Epidemiology and Emergency Response Program, FSIS, and was the first Deputy FSIS Administrator for Public Health and Science. Dr. Morris created and now heads the Division of Hospital Epidemiology in the Department of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Morris has a strong interest in the area of emerging pathogens, including work with multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria. He serves as co-PI on the CDC Emerging Infections Program sentinel surveillance site in the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Elaine Scallan is a Senior Epidemiologist with the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her main areas of focus are determining the burden of foodborne diseases and attributing foodborne illness to specific foods. Prior to arriving at CDC, Elaine worked with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. She has a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the Department of Public Health Medicine and Epidemiology, University College Dublin, Ireland.
Robert Tauxe is Chief of the Branch that is charged with prevention and control of intestinal bacterial infections at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Branch monitors the frequency of these infections in the United States, investigates outbreaks, and develops strategies to reduce the disease, disability and deaths that they cause. Dr. Tauxe graduated from Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut cum laude in 1975, and received his medical degree from Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, he holds a Masters in Public Health degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Tauxe completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Washington, and is certified in internal medicine. He then trained at CDC in the Epidemic Intelligence Service for two years, and joined the CDC staff in 1985. Dr. Tauxe's interests include bacterial enteric diseases, epidemiology and pathogenesis of infectious diseases, epidemiologic and clinical consequences of bacterial genetic exchange, antimicrobial use and resistance to antimicrobial agents, and teaching epidemiologic methods. Dr. Tauxe has served internationally in Belgium, Mali, Rwanda, Peru and Guatemala and has supervised numerous overseas epidemiologic investigations. Dr. Tauxe's faculty appointments include the School of Public Health, Department of International Health, and the Department of Biology, both at Emory University. Dr. Tauxe has authored/co-authored 220 journal articles, letters and book chapters.
Michael R. Taylor is a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF) and chairs the steering committee of the Food Safety Research Consortium, a multi-disciplinary, collaborative effort by RFF and six universities to improve the food safety system by developing risk ranking and priority-setting tools that policymakers and risk managers can use to better allocate research, regulatory, and educational resources and more effectively reduce food safety risks. Prior to joining RFF in 2000, Taylor's career included service as Administrator of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (1994-1996), Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the Food and Drug Administration (1991-1994), 12 years practicing food and drug law in Washington with King & Spalding, and 16 months as Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Company. Taylor served as co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee that issued the report Intentional Human Dosing Studies for EPA Regulatory Purposes: Scientific and Ethical Issues (2004) and was a member of the NAS committees that issued reports on Dioxin and Dioxin-like Compounds in the Food Supply � Strategies to Decrease Exposure (2003) and Animal Biotechnology � Science-Based Concerns (2002). He received his law degree from the University of Virginia and his B.A. in political science at Davidson College.
Ewen Todd is Director of the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center at Michigan State University. He is responsible for coordinating research, education and outreach activities in toxicology, microbiology, risk assessment, epidemiology, social science and policy of foodborne disease control for the center. He also runs research programs in risk assessment of Listeria and contamination of blueberries. From 1968 to 2001 he worked as a research scientist to reach the most senior level in the government in the Health Protection Branch, Health Canada, Ottawa. He worked as an expert on a federal governmental strategic threat action committee to recognize a specific threat in Canada in a crisis situation and recommend mitigating and preventative measures, and received the highest security clearance. Prior to that he was Assistant Lecturer, Department of Bacteriology, University of Glasgow working with human pathogens and teaching students. His primary interest has been surveillance of foodborne and waterborne disease, analytical methods development, risk assessment and management. He has been at World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, and International Atomic Energy Agency consultations, meetings and country assignments for foodborne disease surveillance, emerging pathogens, control of ciguatera, economics of preharvest treatment of animals, costs and benefits of food irradiation. He has worked with different organizations in the control of seafood toxins. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, books, book chapters, and conference proceedings as well as 80 government and non-government reports. He has also given over 280 presentations at scientific meetings, organized 23 scientific conferences or symposia, and taught in 32 workshops or courses. He has received the Excellence in Science Award for 1998, the Deputy Minister's Award of Team Excellence in 1999, a Public Service of Canada award for the Fight BAC! Food Safety Team in 2000, and the Professional Institute of the Public Service in Canada's 2001 Gold Medal in Pure or Applied Science in 2001.