The US food safety agency plans to release two draft risk assessments in order to help manufacturers tackle the problem of salmonella in pasteurised shell eggs and egg products.
Developed by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the soon-to-be released documents aim to provide scientific information that the agency can use to develop ‘pathogen reduction lethality performance standards’ for pasteurised shell eggs and egg products.
The first risk assessment is a quantitative analysis of salmonella enteritidis in shell eggs and the second is a quantitative risk assessment of salmonella in pasteurised liquid egg products.
Estimated medical costs for foodborne salmonella infections were $118 million under both approaches, with two-thirds of these costs due to hospital care.
A public meeting on 22 October aims to provide a forum to discuss the technical design and assumptions that were used to create these draft risk assessments.