An overview of food safety issues relative to animal products

Presently, strategies for discovering new factors for enhancing animal productivity allow for greater assurance of food safety. A high degree of assurance of food safety is provided by the use of natural growth factors. This is especially true when these factors are proteins which, when ingested, are digested to inactive peptides and amino acids and are, in addition, inactive in human tissues. Knowing the mechanisms of activity of such factors also allows for the assurance that known mediators of the growth factors can also be shown to be inactivated by intestinal barriers. The design of nonpeptide molecules with highly selective activity will be possible with the large amount of progress expected in understanding the structure of the active components of natural molecules and the availability of specific receptor systems. Food safety concerns may be met by the demonstration that these molecules are inactive in comparable human receptor systems. These drug discovery strategies can ensure with a high degree of confidence the development of new productivity enhancers that meet food safety requirements.