Safety First: Food allergies, false COVID-19 claims, honey adulteration and more feature in our round-up Food allergies, false COVID-19 claims, honey adulteration and more feature in this edition of Safety First.
More effective policies to prevent allergen cross contamination are needed in Australia’s food industry, while voluntary labelling needs to more accurately reflect the risk profile, said a lead investigator of HealthNuts, the world’s largest comprehensive study on childhood food allergy.
The HealthNuts study has been ongoing for some 15 years, comprising data from children across Australia, Singapore, South Africa, 10 countries in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Toxicity tracking: New Australian data reveals vitamin and mineral cases rising by 9% per year Reported toxicity cases involving vitamins and minerals increased by 9.6 per cent each year between 2014 and 2019 in Australia, according to new data.
During the five-year period, there were 10,944 VMS related poisoning cases reported to the New South Wales Poisons Information Centre (NSWPIC).
Of which, most of the cases were related to multivitamins (3,610 cases), followed by vitamin D (2,080), iron (1,533), and magnesium (804).
As a result, 17.7 per cent of cases were hospitalised, with the vast majority (77 per cent) managing to address the problem at home.
This is said to be the first study analysing cases related to VMS poisoning in Australia.