IRAC Annual Plan (FY2006)

1. Quarterly Meeting Presentations

i. Continue presentations by agency representatives on current risk assessments.

ii. Continue presentations by member agencies on issues related to risk assessment.

iii. Presentations by other organizations, e.g., ILSI, academia.

2. Work Group Projects

i. Data Gaps Analysis

• Add new data gaps to the Data Gaps list as they are identified.
• Update the list for data gaps that have been or are being addressed.
• Identify effective means to publicize the list and promote research that address the data gaps.
• Develop criteria and methods for ranking the data gaps and research priority.

ii. Data Quality and Information Guidelines

Plan to continue work on a more far-reaching document (of which the earlier five pager will provide a good introduction) to discuss issues in data quality, including methods to ensure quality, potential drawbacks, lessons learned, etc. This document will be based on the response to the questionnaires provided to the member agencies on their data quality practices.

iii. Data Utility

• Hold a symposium on "The Status of Data Utility in Health Risk Assessment and Decision" at the SRA, December 5, 2005
• Consider a second workshop with the focus on statistical sampling [see under Annual Meeting section below].
• Possibly develop a discussion paper on useful sampling strategies based on the two meetings and agency needs to serve as a reference for member agencies

iv. Microbiological Criteria

• Present final reviewed white paper on "Determination of Microbiological Criteria" at the ICMSF/RAC/ILSI/IAFP/IFT symposium on Relating Microbiological Testing and Microbiological Criteria to Public Health Goals, October 31- November 1, 2005
• Provide this paper to ICMSF, November, 2005.
• Submit paper to a peer reviewed journal for publication

3. Annual Meeting/Workshop

• Host or co-host at least one public meeting in the late summer or early fall: topic to be determined:
• Data Utility:
• Focus on statistical sampling
• Risk Ranking
• What next: - where do we go from here?
• A "how-to" workshop creating accepted metrics for measuring illness and integrating economic measures
• Integrating chemical with microbial hazards
• Co-host a symposium on "Relating Microbiological Testing and Microbiological Criteria to Public Health Goals", October 31- November 1, 2005

4. New issues

• Form additional work groups to address relevant risk assessment issues as appropriate. Preliminary communications with RAC representatives indicate likely submissions in the following areas:
• Genomics Application in Food Safety
• Foodborne allergens
• New techniques on nutritional risk assessments such as:
• Malnutrition
• Overnutrition
• Nutrition imbalance
• Effect of low carbohydrate diet
• Effect of decreasing folates in the diet
• Coordination among RAC member agencies in response to natural disasters