• The Journal of Health Technology Assessment
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.22-26
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• 2013

Objectives: Balancing benefits and risks through the drug life cycle has been discussed for many decades. The objective of this study was to review the processes and tools currently proposed for benefit-risk assessment of medicinal drugs. It aimed to establish scientific and efficient drug safety management system based on the synthetic analysis of benefit-risk evidence. Methods: We conducted a review of exiting literatures published by regulatory agencies or initiatives. Not only quantitative methodologies but also qualitative method were compared to understand their key characteristics for the benefit and risk assessment of drugs. Results: Recently, benefit-risk assessments have more structured approaches to decision making as part of regulatory science. Regulatory agencies such as European Medicines Agency, FDA have prepared plans to apply benefit-risk assessment to regulatory decision making. Also many initiatives such as IMI (Innovative Medicine Initiative) have conducted research and published reports about benefit-risk assessment. For benefit-risk assessment, four kinds of methods are necessary. Frameworks such as BRAT (Benefit Risk Action Team) framework, PrOACT-URL provide guidance for the whole process of decision-making. Metrics are measurements of risk benefit. The estimation techniques are methods to synthesis and combine evidences from various sources. The utility survey techniques are necessary to explicit preferences of various outcome from stakeholders. Conclusion: There is the lack of widely accepted, validated model for benefit-risk assessment. Nor there is an agreement among academia, industry, and government on methods for the quantitative valuation. It is also limited by available evidence and underlying assumptions. Nevertheless, benefit-risk assessment is fundamental to improve transparency, consistency and predictability for decision making through the structured systematic approaches.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.147-158
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• 2005

A food safety survey was conducted to assess the housewives' handling practices and consumption of potentially risky foods in family home. More than $40\%$ of the respondents wash their hands without soap or use their wash towels after contact with potentially risky foods such as meat, poultry, fish, shellfish, raw eggs, meat processed foods, raw fruits and vegetables. Over half of the respondents have consumed undercooked eggs without recognizing the potential health risk of consumption of raw eggs. $34\%$ of the respondents do not wash their hands after breaking raw eggs, indicating high risk of cross contamination while handling raw eggs. More than $60\%$ of the respondents just use running water to wash fresh fruits and vegetables. $78.9\%\;and\;45.2\%$ of the respondents have consumed sushi/sashimi or raw oysters, respectively in the past 12 months. The results of this study indicate the substantial risks of unsafe food-handling practice at the points of cross-contamination, cooling practices, storage time, and consumption of potentially risky foods at home. Considering the housewives' participation in school food service, development of food safety education program for the housewives is needed to promote safe handling practices of potentially risky foods.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.1005-1013
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• 2008

In this study, in order to analyze the air quality of the indoor environments of schools, we measured the indoor, outdoor and personal exposure concentration level of $PM_{10}$ for 40 classrooms(20 old, 20 new) in chungnam area from June 22 to July 19 and from November 21 to December 30, 2003. 1. Old classrooms contained more dust than new classrooms; the average of respirable dust is $43.27\;{\mu}g/m^3$ for new classrooms while $53.38\;{\mu}g/m^3$ for old one. The exposure concentration level of respirable dust in new classrooms were in summer higher outdoors than indoors. The values were indoors $46.71\;{\mu}g/m^3$, outdoors $50.46\;{\mu}g/m^3$, and personal $41.62\;{\mu}g/m^3$. Meanwhile in winter indoors had a higher concentration level than outdoors, the values being indoors $39.11\;{\mu}g/m^3$, outdoors $34.86\;{\mu}g/m^3$, and personal $49.01\;{\mu}g/m^3$. 2. Cr concentration level within dust was slightly higher in summer indoors ($101.50{\pm}32.10\;ng/m^3$) and outdoors ($100.89{\pm}35.18\;ng/m^3$) than winter indoors ($85.80{\pm}48.95\;ng/m^3$) and outdoors ($74.43{\pm}38.93\;ng/m^3$), but in personal concentration level, winter was higher. The results of this research show insufficient understanding of health risks from indoor air pollution, and shows possible health problems to students from school indoor air pollution. As such, a logical and systematic education program for students about the importance of indoor air quality should be carried out. Also the results of $PM_{10}$ concentration level measurements emphasize the need for regular measurements of indoor / outdoor and personal concentration level. New classrooms in particular needs to be used after measuring pollutants and safety, and requires installation of a ventilation device in all classrooms to improve air quality.

• Journal of Dairy Science and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2015

Before the advent of pasteurization and other microbiological controls in the dairy industry, milk product-borne diseases such as scarlet fever, typhoid fever, septic sore throat, and tuberculosis were globally widespread. Pasteurization was invented by Louis Pasteur, and it has been considered as one of the most effective ways to control milk product-borne diseases since the 20th century. Nevertheless, till date, various types of cheese in the EU, the USA, and other countries are made from unpasteurized milk as artisan cheese, following the specific food regulations of each nation. Furthermore, after the effectiveness of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations between Korea and many nations, the import of various types of cheese made in different conditions and influenced by acidity, preservatives, temperature, competing flora, water activity, and salt concentration increased yearly. Hence, the objective of this review was to describe (1) the 60-day aging rule of cheese, (2) characteristics of the outbreaks linked to cheese manufactured from unpasteurized milk since 1998 to 2011 in USA, and (3) serious health risks from unpasteurized milk, to ensure food protection and safety and to use this basic information for risk assessment.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.172-181
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• 2015

This study intends to improve the radiation safety management and the recognition for handling radiation using structured questionnaires to dental hygienists working at Jeollabuk-do from September 1 to October 31 in 2014. As a result, 63% of respondents have not received education for radiation safety management. Moreover, the practical degree for radiation safety management was $2.58{\pm}1.11$, while the degree of knowledge was $3.74{\pm}0.83$ of total 5.0. The results of insecurity for radiation danger were high as $3.88{\pm}0.92$, and insecurity for fetus during pregnancy shows the highest value as $4.43{\pm}0.71$. From the results of statistical significance level, the knowledge degree of radiation safety management is affected by total numbers of radiograpy for a day (p<0.05), and the practical degree of radiation safety management is affected by age group, academic background, monthly income, continuous service year, practice area, present position, and status of radiography in present (p<0.05). In addition, the knowledge degree of radiation safety management have a negative correlation (r=-0.232) with the practical degree, but have a positive correlation (r=0.262) with the insecurity for radiation danger. The high knowledge degree of radiation safety management (${\beta}=0.252$, p<0.001) and the short radiography work period (${\beta}=-0.341$, p<0.05) were the influential factors to the insecurity for radiation danger. Consequently, countermeasures are necessary to encourage dental hygienists to put their radiation safety management knowledge into the practice and to reduce the insecurity degree for radiation danger. Furthermore, it is important to prevent psychological and physical risks by radiation exposure through the improvement of radiation safety management level and recognition for handling radiation to improve medical environment.

• The Korean Journal of Pesticide Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.302-306
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• 2013

We report the dietary exposure to rotenone in the Korean population and children (1-18) through consumption of lettuce and cucumber. To obtain the residue data, we analyzed using the GC-NPD and HPLC-DAD method. Rotenone residues in samples were as follows; lettuce 0.16-1.15, cucumber < 0.001-0.006. The average dietary intake was determined using result from the 2009 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Data. The risk index (RI) was calculated using rotenone residues and dietary intakes. The lettuce and cucumber showed the highest at 18.41%, 0.00, respectively. RI fell below 100 of %RfD showing no risks in these vegetables. Therefore, the risk assessment on the detected rotenone was evaluated as safe level.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.71-76
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• 2018

This study examined the status of the laboratory biosafety of researchers in Korea during 03 Jan 2017~25 Mar 2017. Questionnaires were given out to 500 researchers working with pathogens in the laboratory of universities and institutes. According to the results, the respondents showed a high level of awareness but not compliance on the overall biosafety rules and regulations. Regarding the Biosafety facility level, 279 (55.8%) of respondents answered "know" and 221 (44.2%) of respondents answered "no". Despite the insufficient safety equipment and biosafety plans, researchers believed that appropriate safety measures could protect the workers and that their laboratories are safe. In a study involving biosafety education, 80% of the researchers had been trained in laboratory safety and 20% had never received safety education. The need for biosafety education was 66% and the satisfaction rate of education was 46%. These results suggest that the researchers already had experience in biosafety training, but they believed that continuing education is necessary. In addition, there were opinions that the most important thing to improve the biosafety status is to strengthen the training program and education system. In conclusion, it is necessary to develop a better training system for laboratory biosafety regarding the exposure risks.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.410-417
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• 2010

Various functional foods, marketing health and functional effects, have been distributed in the market. These products, being in forms of foods, tablets, and capsules, are likely to be mistaken as drugs. In addition, non-experts may sell these as foods, or use these for therapy. Efforts for creating health food regulations or building regulatory system for improving the current status of functional foods have been made, but these have not been communicated to consumers yet. As a result, problems of circulating functional foods for therapy or adding illegal medical to such products have persisted, which has become worse by internet media. The cause of this problem can be categorized into (1) product itself and (2) its use, but in either case, one possible cause is lack of communications with consumers. Potential problems that can be caused by functional foods include illegal substances, hazardous substances, allergic reactions, considerations when administered to patients, drug interactions, ingredients with purity or concentrations too low to be detected, products with metabolic activations, health risks from over- or under-dose of vitamin and minerals, and products with alkaloids. (Journal of Health Science, 56, Supplement (2010)). The reason why side effects related to functional foods have been increasing is that under-qualified functional food companies are exaggerating the functionality for marketing purposes. KFDA has been informing consumers, through its web pages, to address the above mentioned issues related to functional foods, but there still is room for improvement, to promote proper use of functional foods and avoid drug interactions. Specifically, to address these issues, institutionalizing to collect information on approved products and their side effects, settling reevaluation systems, and standardizing preclinical tests and clinical tests are becoming urgent. Also to provide crucial information, unified database systems, seamlessly aggregating heterogeneous data in different domains, with user interfaces enabling effective one-stop search, are crucial.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.51-60
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• 2023

The foodborne illness is the important public health concerns, and the livestock feces are known to be one of the major reservoirs of foodborne pathogens. Also, it was reported that 45.5% of foodborne illness outbreaks have been associated with the animal products contaminated with the livestock feces. In addition, it has been known that the persistence of a pathogens depends on many potential virulent factors including the various virulent genes. Therefore, the first step to understanding the public health risk of livestock feces is to identify and describe microbial communities and potential virulent genes that contribute to bacterial pathogenicity. We used the whole metagenome shotgun sequencing to evaluate the prevalence of foodborne pathogens and to characterize the virulence associated genes in pig and chicken feces. Our data showed that the relative abundance of potential foodborne pathogens, such as Bacillus cereus was higher in chickens than pigs at the species level while the relative abundance of foodborne pathogens including Campylobacter coli was only detected in pigs. Also, the microbial functional characteristics of livestock feces revealed that the gene families related to "Biofilm formation and quorum sensing" were highly enriched in pigs than chicken. Moreover, the variety of gene families associated with "Resistance to antibiotics and toxic compounds" were detected in both animals. These results will help us to prepare the scientific action plans to improve awareness and understanding of the public health risks of livestock feces.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.38 no.7
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• pp.395-401
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• 2016

Nano-saftey has become an emerging issue recently, because of the broad use of nanomaterials in nano-industries and commercial areas. For a sustainable development in the nano-industry, active studies on nano-safety should be executed, especially on the potential risks in engineered nanomaterials (ENMs). Although acute and chronic assessments of nanomaterials have been extensively studied in many studies, multigenerational studies are very scarce. Overall, multigenerational studies have progressed as two different trends, studying post-generational effects or trans-generation effects. This study intended to suggest further nano-safety studies based on the trends and limitations of current ones. Through a comparative analysis, we investigated peer-reviewed multigenerational studies that used nanomaterials. Thirteen studies on post-generation effects confirmed generational nano-toxicity via several bioassays, such as mortality, fertility, and behavioral assays. Seven studies on trans-generation effects demonstrated nanomaterial pathways to next generations, using imaging techniques. Until now, mechanisms for post-generational nano-toxicity has been rarely proposed. Thus, we propose that complementary studies on such mechanisms are imperative for future studies.