The anti-terror forces have lately become extremely cautious and started preparing contingency plans to counter looming threats of terrorist attacks in whatever form possible. Keeping pace with the measures taken at international level, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of USA, has recently announced regulations and asked domestic and foreign food facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold food for human or animal consumption in the US to register with the agency by December 12, 2004. All the relevant information regarding registration is available on FDA's website. In case of export to US by any unregistered facility, the agency will have the right to hold the supplies at the port of entry or move it to some other location for inspection. In such case, all the costs will have to be borne the respective exporters to the US.

The FDA move has been a continuation of the legislative measures taken by the US over the past few years. As the US is a huge market for food products and destination of shipments pouring in from every corner of the world, the Congress launched Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, popularly called the Bioterrorism Act. The acts grants immense powers to FDA to ensure that every grain of food that reaches US soil is free of hazardous contamination, whether it is deliberate or accidental. In this respect, FDA requires that prior notice be given to FDA before food is imported or offered for import into the United States. This will give the agency advanced information of imported food shipments and allows FDA to target inspections of suspect shipments more effectively to help ensure the safety of imported food products before they enter the US market.

Unlike always, this time the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) of Pakistan has also taken the initiative and published bilingual newspaper announcements in this respect for the benefit of the exporters of food products from Pakistan to the US. On the other hand, like always, the bureau has failed miserably to raise awareness among the exporters on the issue or invite them to a common platform. An official at the bureau's Lahore office contends that it is not the responsibility of EPB to ensure that all the food exporters comply with the requirements.

"It's a purely personal affair as every intending party can register online or through surface mail with any of the agents specified by FDA in the US. Such agent may be a person residing or maintaining business in the US and might include importers, customs brokers or others with whom foreign facilities already have business relationships. And above all the registration is free of cost," he adds.

The official says the said regulations will also keep a check on the practice of exporting products from ports other than those of the countries of origin as FDA will keep on tracking shipments from day one. However, he adds, that Pakistani exporters will have to be extraordinarily vigilant while despatching shipments as any act of sabotage can tarnish country's already negative image in the world export markets.

Sheikh Mushtaq, a Lahore-based exporter of dry fruits to the US and the European markets, tells TNS that neither he nor his fellow food exporters have registered themselves yet although they came to know about the issue through EPB's advertisements placed in newspapers two weeks back. "It is strange that the government has considered it enough to place ads and refrained from providing any advice or legal assistance to the stakeholders in getting registered," he adds. Mushtaq firmly believes that the said regulations are aimed at hurting economies of Muslim countries in general and Pakistan's economy in particular.

Tracing the history of events that led to the formulation of Bio-terrorism Act, one can find that major outbreaks of food-borne illnesses have occurred all too frequently, sometimes affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Among the largest reported outbreaks caused by unintentional biological contamination was an outbreak of 'Salmonella typhimurium' -- infection that sickened approximately 170,000 people in 1985 and was linked to post-pasteurization contamination of milk from a US dairy plant. An outbreak of hepatitis A caused by tainted clams affected nearly 300,000 people in China in 1991 and may be the largest food-borne disease incident in history.

The question that arises here is that if an unintentional contamination of food can affect thousands of individuals, a concerted and deliberate attack on food could be devastating, especially if a more dangerous chemical, biological, or radionuclear agent were used. Food has been used in the recent past as a medium for carrying terrorist attacks through biological and chemical agents, either naturally occurring or genetically engineered substances. Besides, there are deadly agents that tend to cause gastrointestinal discomfort. An incident of food sabotage was reported in September 2002 when nearly 40 people died and more than 200 were hospitalized near Nanjing, China after the owner of a fast-food outlet poisoned a competitor's breakfast foods with rat poison.

Ehsan Qazi, an agricultural scientist, fears that the emerging scenario will require Pakistani exporters to avoid exporting low-grade foodstuff. Previously, it was a matter confined to the importer and the exporter only whereas now any discrepancy can lead to widespread hue and cry against import of food from the country. Citing the example of the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis in England, widely known as mad cow disease, he says the European economy had to suffer for years due to the panic created by the discovery despite the fact that the disease was confined to certain areas only. "The European economy is strong enough to absorb such shock but we are not," Ehsan warns.