Hi,
discussions below demonstrate different type of views - from the origin (biological) or the nature (chemical) In my opinion it is a more or less philosophical discussion with respect to HACCP.
no microorganism (e.g. Staph. aureus) - no toxin
microorganism present - no toxin (Staph can grow without producing toxin)
no microorganism (organisms removed) - toxin possible
etc.
Independent whether you define a toxins as a biological or a chemical hazard you have to define measures for conmtrolling the hazard due to micro and due to toxin. What does the classification help?
I have classified both the mircos and the toxins as biological (origin view).
Dear moskito,
Bit
I imagine there must hv been a lot of similar philosophical arguments prior to the launching of the subject of "Biochemistry".
IMEX, it is quite rare to find factory labs routinely testing for SA toxin (not exactly a simple procedure i suspect after a quick look). A few regulationary references I could see do include it as a necessary follow-up in the event of "high" S.aureus levels for obvious reasons however i rather doubt this is commonly done unless there is a specific health-related incident in process. One can also readily get rejections purely based on S.aureus results from bitter experience.
I think a common
haccp ploy in the case of SA toxin is that the hazard is simply textually left as "S.aureus" however, as per Tony's comments, this logic has several times been clearly proven unsafe in the detection sense, eg in several canning incidents.
One can also get some interesting analogous (internal?) debates over related items such as scombrotoxins, mycotoxins, etc, as in link below.
A USFDA viewpoint is illustrated here -
http://www.fda.gov/F...9/ucm188363.htm(stated as based on "Chemical hazards may be naturally occurring or may be added during the processing of food. High levels of toxic chemicals may cause acute cases of foodborne illness, while chronic illness may result from low levels.")
added/expanded - Note that (annex4,table1) "Staphylococcus aureus(preformed heat stable toxin)" is within "Biological" hazards( and similarly B.cereus, E.coli O157 )whereas some other, also biochemically produced toxins, are (annex4,table2) in "Chemical". A quiet compromise for convenience maybe.
As an additional permutation, there is an elegant support (2012) for mycotoxins to be in "Biological" here -
http://www.foodquali...CCP_System.htmlDespite my personal reservations, it seemed to me after a look around the net that SA (with or without the textual "toxin" tag) is most frequently put into "Biological" in contrast to the other toxins mentioned above in annex4table2 which more frequently are housed in "Chemical" hazards.
As previously suggested here, this quote is perhaps a simple summary -
2. Explanatory Note:
Students may ask why some hazards are classified as chemical rather than biological. The best answer is tradition. It is important to stress, however, that the significant issue is not the actual classification of a hazard, but accurate identification and control.
http://www.iit.edu/i...irstedition.pdf(pg13
And next comes Allergens.
Rgds / Charles.C
