Three scientists who developed therapies against parasitic infections have won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Most people think of parasitic diseases occurring in poor and developing countries, something they might pick up on an overseas trip. However, parasitic infections still occur in the United States, and in some cases, affect millions of people.
A parasite is an organism that lives on or in a host and gets its food from or at the expense of its host. Parasitic diseases can be food-borne. Salmonella is the most common bacterial food-borne infection. Salmonella species are facultative intracellular parasites, capable of penetrating, surviving, and often multiplying within diverse eukaryotic cell types, including epithelial and phagocytic cells.
In the past, food would be sourced, processed and sold locally so an outbreak would usually affect only a limited population. Today, raw materials are sourced from around the world, often at the lowest cost, then transported long distances in complex supply chains for mass production and sale in global markets. Therefore, the severity of incidents of parasitic diseases is increasing as food products are sourced and transported globally in complex supply chains. Food producers can be affected by problems caused by small suppliers and face financial losses as a result.
For example, peanut butter is at relatively high risk because salmonella resistance to heat increases in products with low water activity and high fat content. Many types of food products contain peanut butter, including ice cream, cookies and sweets, which extend the risk to hundreds if not thousands of final products. When an incident occurs, a large number of food producers have to recall and destroy products. Peanut butter products are often consumed by vulnerable people, including children and the elderly increasing the risk potential of any incident.
Currently, bacterial, viral and other parasitic diseases cause enormous suffering and millions of deaths annually, and have huge economic costs. Understanding natural immune responses and developing vaccine-induced immune responses to these and other diseases is critically important to health.
The supply chain risks and consequences experienced in peanut butter production could apply to many types of food products and producers. Similar risks are evident in other industries, such as the pharmaceutical, construction and automotive sectors. Here, sub-standard or defective materials can cause product failures that might lead to accidents, injuries or fatalities. As a critical element of risk engineering, mitigating risk and uncertainty is vitally important for all the industrial products.
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