The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) Laboratory for Food Safety provides support to public decision-makers through general scientific expertise on the quality and safety of foodstuffs, and more specific scientific expertise on certain processing sectors. Its work is focused on biological (bacteria, viruses, parasites) and chemical (toxins, metals, pesticides, organic pollutants, histamine) hazards found, and likely to be found, in foods, particularly during distribution and consumption. As a reference laboratory, ANSES Laboratory for Food Safety also provides the health authorities with scientific and technical expertise (sample analyses, surveillance plans, validation of analytical methods, inter-laboratory proficiency tests, training for accredited and recognised laboratories and monitoring the quality of their analyses, study coordination, etc.) and participates in exchanges with international scientific partners. ANSES GAMER unit is involved in research programmes related to quantitative microbial risk assessment: (i) Modeling the behaviour of bacteria and viruses in food or in the environment; (ii) modeling the production of toxins and toxic bacterial; and (iii) quantitative assessment of the risks to bacteria and viruses, including through study of dose-response effects.
