Mycotoxins - a food related problem

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Introduction
01 Cancer
02 Ozone
03 Urban air
04 Air pollutants
05 Blue-green algae
06 Water mutagens
07 Contamination
08 Chernobyl
09 Radon
10 Medical geology
11 Renal hazards
12 Organohalogens
13 Estrogens
14 Food hazards
15 Mycotoxins
16 Poisoning
17 Genetics
18 Risk

Ordering

(Excerpt from Chapter 15)

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Is our food safe?

At the beginning of the new century, the number of incidents of food-related illness is increasing again after a long period of decline. There are many reasons for this, but an important factor is the considerable degree of integration of the food system. All communities in a nation are served by components of the same food system, even in geographically large countries such as Canada and the USA. Less than one generation ago, communities would have been mainly served by regional or even local food production. The centralization of food production systems results in larger niches for infectious agents. In most countries, consumer preference for fresh food mean the large-scale transport of such commodities from sub-tropical areas prone to both infectious agents and fungal toxins. Patterns of wheat and corn production have changed towards attempts at self-sufficiency in regions outside the traditional dryland production areas in Australia, Canada and USA.

Acute versus chronic food-borne hazards

In countries such as Canada, the USA and Sweden, regulatory authorities place emphasis on food contaminants for two distinct reasons: (1) the ability of the agent to cause acute responses e.g. bacterial food poisoning, verotoxin-producing E. coli (verotoxin helps to bring about the massive kidney damage caused by such strains), the prion that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathies, and (2) agents that have fatal consequences from chronic exposure. Although it may come as some surprise, countries such as Canada, the USA and Sweden place mycotoxins at the top of the second list. Mycotoxins are compounds produced by fungi that are harmful to human and animal health.

Poisons of the past and present

Mycotoxins have affected human populations since the beginning of organized crop production. Ergotism is discussed in the Old Testament of the Bible. Some claim that the ancient Chinese used ergot for obstetrical purposes 5,000 years ago. Many epidemics of ergotism were reported in western Europe from about 800 AD. The screams of the victims, the stench of rotting flesh, extremities falling off and death all feature in the descriptions of the disease. Large-scale mortalities persisted into the 18th century, when governments and the church promoted methods for the removal of sclerotia.

Outbreaks of ergotism have been reported in developing countries in modern times. Because the cause of the problem - the consumption of ergot-infested grain - is something easily seen by the naked eye, ergotism is now uncommon. Today, the "invisible" mycotoxins are important causes of acute and chronic disease in developing countries.

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David Miller was born in New Brunswick (Canada) and received graduate and post-graduate education at the University of New Brunswick and the University of Portsmouth (UK) where he was also a NATO Science Fellow. He was the head of the Fusarium mycotoxin program at Agriculture Canada from 1988 - 1997, when he joined the faculty at Carleton University in Ottawa. He has participated in the last International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph (56) including mycotoxins and helped to draft the International Program for Chemical Safety monograph on fumonisin B1 (1999). From 1995 - 1999, he was a member of the United States Food & Drug Administration - National Toxicology Program study committee for fumonisin. In 1998, he won the George Scott Award from the Toxicology Forum for contributions to toxicology. He has worked extensively on mycotoxin problems in developing countries.