{"id":70006,"date":"2016-04-27T15:19:46","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T15:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=e33f9c8e832825a4353ea8b49c87db81"},"modified":"2016-04-27T15:19:46","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T15:19:46","slug":"news-story-strategy-to-address-gaps-in-food-allergen-analysis-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=70006","title":{"rendered":"News story: Strategy to address gaps in food allergen analysis needed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Food allergy is a rapidly growing problem in the developed world, affecting up to 10 % of children and 2-3 % of adults, yet allergens remain challenging to analyse accurately, thus difficult to control.<\/p>\n<p>Drawing on their extensive experience in this field, including solving the almond\/mahaleb analytical mix up in the spices supply chain, Michael Walker, of the Government Chemist Programme, and his co-authors have published an <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/pubs.rsc.org\/en\/content\/articlehtml\/2016\/an\/c5an01457c?page=search\">open access paper<\/a> in the journal Analyst outlining a strategy to address the key measurement challenges in allergen analysis.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"a-grand-vision-for-allergen-analysis\">A grand vision for allergen analysis<\/h2>\n<p>Walker and colleagues set out a \u2018grand vision\u2019 in the paper, with recommendations primarily addressed to the European Commission, the Health and Food Safety Directorate, DG Sant\u00e9.<\/p>\n<p>The recommendations consist of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>bioinformatics studies to pin down relevant markers or allergenic proteins within allergenic foods<\/li>\n<li>development of reference methods for these allergens<\/li>\n<li>appropriate reference materials which can ultimately support threshold decisions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Michael Walker said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Our recommendations are complex with associated resource demand but rarely has such an exciting interdisciplinary scientific endeavour arisen as a solution to a key socially relevant problem.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Significant international effort and an inter-disciplinary approach will be required to achieve these aims but the result would be a food chain which is reliable, resistant to fraud and ultimately safe for the consumer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Government Chemist Programme and expert colleagues are addressing challenges facing food allergen measurements<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70006"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}