Alshannaq Ahmad, Yu Jae-Hyuk
Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1550 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
Toxins (Basel). 2021 Jan 26;13(2):90. doi: 10.3390/toxins13020090.
The most common, toxic, and carcinogenic mycotoxins found in human food and animal feed are the aflatoxins (AFs). The United States is a leading exporter of various nuts, with a marketing value of $9.1 billion in 2019; the European Union countries are the major importers of U.S. nuts. In the past few years, border rejections and notifications for U.S. tree nuts and peanuts exported to the E.U. countries have increased due to AF contamination. In this work, we analyzed notifications from the "Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF)" on U.S. food and feed products contaminated with mycotoxins, primarily AFs, for the 10-year period 2010-2019. Almost 95% of U.S. mycotoxin RASFF notifications were reported for foods and only 5% for feeds. We found that 98.9% of the U.S. food notifications on mycotoxins were due to the AF contamination in almond, peanut, and pistachio nuts. Over half of these notifications (57.9%) were due to total AF levels greater than the FDA action level in food of 20 ng g. The Netherlands issued 27% of the AF notifications for U.S. nuts. Border rejection was reported for more than 78% of AF notifications in U.S. nuts. All U.S. feed notifications on mycotoxins occurred due to the AF contamination. Our research contributes to better understanding the main reasons behind RASFF mycotoxins notifications of U.S. food and feed products destined to E.U. countries. Furthermore, we speculate possible causes of this problem and provide a potential solution that could minimize the number of notifications for U.S. agricultural export market.
在人类食品和动物饲料中发现的最常见、有毒且具有致癌性的霉菌毒素是黄曲霉毒素（AFs）。美国是各类坚果的主要出口国，2019年的市场价值为91亿美元；欧盟国家是美国坚果的主要进口国。在过去几年中，由于AF污染，美国出口到欧盟国家的坚果和花生在边境被拒收及通报的情况有所增加。在这项工作中，我们分析了2010 - 2019年这10年间“食品和饲料快速预警系统（RASFF）”关于受霉菌毒素污染（主要是AFs）的美国食品和饲料产品的通报。美国霉菌毒素RASFF通报中近95%是针对食品的，只有5%是针对饲料的。我们发现，美国关于霉菌毒素的食品通报中有98.9%是由于杏仁、花生和开心果中的AF污染。这些通报中超过一半（57.9%）是由于食品中总AF水平高于美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）20 ng/g的行动水平。荷兰发布了美国坚果AF通报的27%。在美国坚果的AF通报中，超过78%被报告出现边境拒收情况。美国所有关于霉菌毒素的饲料通报都是由于AF污染。我们的研究有助于更好地理解RASFF对 destined to欧盟国家的美国食品和饲料产品霉菌毒素通报背后的主要原因。此外，我们推测了这个问题可能的原因，并提供了一个潜在的解决方案，该方案可以尽量减少美国农产品出口市场的通报数量。
