Food terrorism, by the book

Investigators or responders researching the topics of food terrorism, food defense or food safety often face a bewildering assortment of resources. Most Internet search engines produce far more results than anyone could ever access.

Going straight to appropriate Web sites would help, if one knew where they were. A new paper aimed at librarians offers help navigating through current federal government food terrorism and food defense Web sites (Medical Reference Services Quarterly, vol. 27(1), Spring 2008).

"The article is aimed at reference librarians who are unfamiliar with the federal government's food defense strategies and agencies, and who may be getting questions because of various scares that have hit the news," said author Mary Kay Taylor, an associate professor at Morris Library, Southern Illinois University.

While librarians were Taylor’s intended audience, the article presents background information and sites useful for emergency planners and responders, policy-makers, industry representatives, students, researchers, and consumers.

Good starting points for information about U.S. government activities related to food terrorism would be www.FoodSafety.gov or the Department of Homeland Security, Food and Drug Administration, and Department of Agriculture Web sites, Taylor said.

Also, a 2007 Congressional Research Services report titled "The Federal Food Safety System: A Primer" provides an overview of primary food safety agencies, and the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy has a chart listing federal agency duties relating to food defense.

The bulk of the paper, however, reviews more than 30 selected Web sites of federal agencies involved in food terrorism prevention, some of which are not all that obvious.

The USDA, for instance, has a Homeland Security section that lists resources, including a link to the Incident Command System Resource Center that provides material for federal and state officials responding to food terrorism events.

A section of the FDA site offers a map of that agency’s food terrorism prevention activities. The FDA site also has a section containing food defense training materials.

In addition, the industry-related Food Marketing Institute has partnered with DHS to create the Food and Agriculture Information Sharing & Analysis Center, whose goals are preventing food terrorism and, in the event of an attack, providing a means by which industry-wide damage control and recovery can be coordinated. This site also contains an Incident Reporting Protocol and links to several useful industry resources.

Taylor’s paper also lists several risk-assessment resources, including a free FDA software tool called CARVER that allows users to interactively assess their company’s or industry’s vulnerabilities to food terrorism.