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Background Naturally existing and human-produced heavy metals are released into the environment and cannot be completely decomposed by microorganisms, but they continue to accumulate in water and sediments, causing organisms to be exposed to heavy metals. Results This study designs and proposes heavy metal hazard decision trees for aquatic products, which are divided into seven categories including pelagic fishes, inshore fishes, other fishes, crustaceans, shellfish, cephalopods, and algae. Based on these classifications, representative fresh and processed seafood products are at the root of the heavy metal hazard decision trees. This study uses 2,107 cases of eating 556 cooked fresh or processed seafood product samples. The constructions of the proposed decision trees consist of 12 heavy metals, which include inorganic arsenic (iAs), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), strontium (Sr), thallium (Tl), and zinc (Zn). The heavy metal concentrations in cooked fresh and processed seafood product samples are subjected to a food safety risk assessment. Conclusions The results indicate the relationships among the seven categories of aquatic products, the relationships among 12 heavy metals in aquatic products, and the relationships among potential human health risks. Finally, the proposed heavy metal hazard decision trees for aquatic products can be used as a reference model for researchers and engineers.

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic pollutant that is widely spread through industrial production and agricultural practices. Epidemiological data has revealed that lifetime exposure to environmentally relevant levels of Cd increases the risk of developing various organ diseases, including chronic kidney, heart, and lung diseases, as well as nervous tissue disorders. This study assessed Cd levels in rice to determine the health risks associated with rice consumption in various age-gender subgroups in Taiwan. The distribution of Cd concentration, the lifetime average daily dose (LADD), and the hazard index (HI) were estimated by Monte Carlo simulation. In the general population, the 50th percentile LADD of Cd for male rice consumers between the ages of 19–65 years was 0.06 μg/kg body weight per day, and the hazard index (HI) 50th, 90th, and 95th percentiles were 0.16, 0.69, and 1.54, respectively. According to the HI heat map for the exposure of the general population to Cd from rice in Taiwan, the highest exposure to Cd was noted in the Yilan area (HI 0.64). Therefore, rice production in the Yilan area should be further monitored to evaluate the levels of Cd contamination.

Aflatoxins are highly toxic and cause disease in livestock and humans. In order to assess Taiwan population exposure to aflatoxin from peanuts and peanut products, a total of 1089 samples of peanut candy, peanut butter, and peanuts etc. were collected in the period from 2011 to 2017 and analyzed using a liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometer. The overall mean contamination levels of aflatoxin in peanuts and peanut products were 2.40 μg/kg of aflatoxin B1, 0.41 μg/kg of aflatoxin B2, 0.19 μg/kg of aflatoxin G1, and 0.03 μg/kg of aflatoxin G2. We use margin of exposure (MOE) as a tool to improve food safety management. According to MOE levels of aflatoxins in peanuts and peanut products from China, Indonesia, Thailand, the United States, and the Philippines were above the safe lower limit of 10,000, indicating an absence of public health or safety risk for the majority of the population. However, products from Vietnam were under the MOE safe lower limit, suggesting that regulatory actions must be continued to avoid excessive consumer exposure.

This paper examines the health risks of exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) through the consumption of mercury-contaminated seafood in Taiwan, based on the total diet study (TDS) method. Samples of seafood (n = 140) were purchased at fishing harbors or supermarkets and classified into seven categories (pelagic fish, inshore fish, farmed fish, shellfish, cephalopods, crustaceans, and algae). For each sample, we analyzed raw and cooked versions and compared the concentration difference. Total mercury (THg) was detected at the highest rate and in the highest concentrations in pelagic fish, followed by inshore fish and other farmed fish. The average concentration of THg was higher after cooking. In a 75th percentile scenario, the hazard indices for children aged 1 to 3 years and children aged 4 to 6 years were higher than 100% of the provisional tolerable weekly intake. Taking into consideration the risk assessment results, MeHg concentrations, and the nutritional composition of fish, we have provided weekly consumption advisories for children aged 1 to 3 years, children aged 4 to 6 years, and childbearing women aged 19 to 49 years. The weekly consumption advisories for childbearing women are 35 g/week of pelagic fish and 245 g/week of inshore fish based on the risk results from MeHg and the potential benefits from eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) intake.

Long COVID, characterized by persistent symptoms following acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, has emerged as a significant public health challenge with wide-ranging clinical and socioeconomic implications. Developing an effective risk assessment strategy is essential for the early identification and management of individuals susceptible to prolonged symptoms. This study uses a quantitative approach to characterize the dose–response relationships between spike protein concentrations and effects, including Long COVID symptom numbers and the release of proinflammatory mediators. A mathematical model is also developed to describe the time-dependent change in spike protein concentrations post diagnosis in twelve Long COVID patients with a cluster analysis. Based on the spike protein concentration–Long COVID symptom numbers relationship, we estimated a maximum symptom number (~20) that can be used to reflect a persistent predictor. We found that among the crucial biomarkers associated with Long COVID proinflammatory mediator, CXCL8 has the lowest 50% effective dose (0.01 μg mL−1), followed by IL-6 (0.39), IL-1β (0.46), and TNF-α (0.56). This work provides a comprehensive risk assessment strategy with dose–response tools and mathematical modeling developed to estimate potential spike protein concentration. Our study suggests persistent Long COVID guidelines for personalized care strategies and could inform public health policies to support early interventions that reduce long-term disability and healthcare burdens with possible other post-infection syndromes.

Broad-scale evidence has shown the significant association between ambient air pollutants and the development of tuberculosis (TB). However, the impact of air quality on the risk of TB in Taiwan is still poorly understood. To develop a probabilistic integrated population-level risk assessment approach for evaluating the contribution of ambient air pollution exposure to the risk of TB development among different regions of Taiwan. A Bayesian-based probabilistic risk assessment model was implemented to link exposure concentrations of various air pollutants quantified in a probabilistic manner with the population-based exposure-response models developed by using an epidemiological investigation. The increment of the risk of TB occurred in a region with a higher level of air pollution, indicating a strong relationship between ambient air pollution exposures and TB incidences. Carbon monoxide (CO) exposure showed the highest population attributable fraction (PAF), followed by nitrogen oxides (NO ) and nitrogen dioxide (NO ) exposures. In a region with higher ambient air pollution, it is most likely (80% risk probability) that the contributions of CO exposure to development of TB were 1.6-12.2% (range of median PAFs), whereas NO and NO exposures contributed 1.2-9.8% to developing TB. Our findings provide strong empirical support for the hypothesis and observations from the literature that poor air quality is highly likely to link aetiologically to the risk of TB. Therefore, substantial reductions in CO, NO , and NO exposures are predicted to have health benefits to susceptible and latently infected individuals that provide complementary mitigation efforts in reducing the burden of TB. Considering that people continue to be exposed to both TB bacilli and ambient air pollutants, our approach can be applied for different countries/regions to identify which air pollutants contribute to a higher risk of TB in order to develop potential mitigation programs.

In recent years, due to the rapid pace of urbanization and increasingly hectic modern lifestyles that leave little time for home cooking, more and more people prefer to dine at food stands, restaurants, or supermarkets due to convenience. This type of people are often called the eating-out population. The general public may have a concept that most of the food items consumed by people eating out are first prepared for storage by vendors and are likely to contain more food preservatives. Excessive exposure to benzoic acid (BA), sorbic acid (SA), and dehydroacetic acid (DHA), which account for the highest number of violations of the amount of preservatives permitted in food, may cause potential human health risk. The purpose of this study was to investigate the human health risks of consuming preservatives used in food among for Taiwanese people who eat out. We applied the total diet study (TDS) method to analyze the concentrations of BA, SA, and DHA in the food items frequently consumed when people dine outside. The hazard index in percent acceptable daily intake (%ADI) of BA and SA for four exposure groups classified by age were calculated. In high-intake consumers, the highest hazard index of BA was 2.5%ADI for the 6–9 years old age group of the eating-out population, which still fell within the acceptable risk range. In addition, the risk appeared to be decreasing year-on-year, which may be related to year-on-year improvements of the way food products are processed in the food industry.

Many food safety incidents have occurred in the world in the past 20 years, causing major threats and harm to human life and health. Each country or region has established different food safety management systems (FSMSs) in response, to increase food safety and to reduce food safety risks. Hence, it is important to develop an FSMS service platform with convenience, consistency, effectiveness, scalability, and lightweight computing. The aim of this study is to design and propose an IOTA Tangle-based intelligent food safety service platform for bubble tea—called IF4BT—which modularizes and integrates hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) principles to increase data transparency. The deep learning inference engine is based on long short-term memory and Siamese networks to check and extract significant rare data of high-risk factors, exception factors, and noises, depending on daily check and audit. IF4BT can ensure the correctness of the information of food manufacturers, so as to increase food safety and to reduce food safety issues such as allergen cross-contamination, food expiration, food defense, and food fraud.

Neonicotinoids (NEOs) are a class of pesticides widely used worldwide. This study analyzed post-cooking residues of NEO pesticides and assessed their potential health risks for preschool children (0–6 years old) by conducting a total diet study (TDS). It involved food sampling, preparation, analysis of pesticide residues, estimation of food consumption data, and assessment of food safety risks. Food sampling was conducted between March and June 2015. A total of 128 food samples were obtained from 4 parts of Taiwan. After the food had been prepared, the 128 samples were aggregated into 32 composite food items and the NEO residues analyzed. Acetamiprid had the highest detection rate of the NEO residues (59.4%), and the concentrations ranged from not detected to 80.5 μg/kg. The estimated daily intake (EDI) of NEO residues among preschool children was found to be lower than the adjusted acceptable daily intake (ADI) even for highly exposed groups. The results showed that NEO pesticides were primarily detected in preserved fruits, cherry tomato, rape, bell fruit, and baby bok choy. The main health risk posed by detected NEO residues at high consumption rates for preschool children was attributed to acetamiprid (34.20 %ADI) and imidacloprid (23.69 %ADI), respectively. Therefore, this research implicates that the present level of NEO residues in the diets for preschool children in Taiwan does not exceed 100 %ADI.

Outbreaks of foodborne illness caused by pathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7, which are attributable to the consumption of undercooked beef, have occurred in many countries. In Taiwan, the production of domestic beef accounts for only 5% of the total amount of beef sold. Therefore, we applied different contextual assumptions to develop a quantitative microbial risk assessment of E. coli O157:H7 and evaluated the risk of illness in the Taiwanese population consuming beef imported from the United States of America. The probability distribution showed that, in males aged 19–65 years in the Taiwanese population, for example, when rare beef was consumed 100 servings, there was a 90% probability of randomly intaking seven colony forming units of E. coli O157:H7. When medium beef was consumed 10,000 servings, there was a 90% probability of randomly intaking two colony forming units of E. coli O157:H7. When the exceedance risk was 5%, the rate of foodborne illnesses caused by consuming rare beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 was 10–28 cases per 1 million individuals. For medium beef, this rate was 6–13 per 100 million individuals. Sensitivity analyses indicated that the amount of E. coli O157:H7 remaining in beef products after cooking was the most important risk factor, followed by the amount of beef products consumed. Proper cooking of imported beef consumed by the Taiwanese public reduces the incidence of foodborne disease to almost zero, without risk of harm to health.