<FONT color=blue>[QA on the Road:]</FONT> IAFP Opens in Columbus, Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The 95th annual meeting of the International Association for Food Protection opened Sunday night at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio.

More than 1,800 food safety professionals are on hand for the four-day meeting, which covers topics ranging from pathogen control to globalization of testing standards to best practices for the industry.

Dr. Russel S. Flowers, chairman and chief scientific officer of the Silliker Group, opened the meeting with the Ivan Parkin Lecture. He spoke of the necessity for high-quality microbiological testing, especially in an industry that is expanding further across national borders.

Flowers said that it is important for companies to test consistently and accurately, and incorporate enough tests to make their results statistically significant.

“I make my living doing testing, and I’m telling you it really isn’t very good if you get down really, really low,” Flowers said. 

Also at the opening session, Fellow Awards were presented to:

• Warren S. Clark
• P. Michael Davidon
• Gloria Swick-Brown

And Student Travel Scholarship Awards were presented to:

• Ji-Yeon Hyeon, Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea
• Hudaa Neetoo, University of Delaware, Newark, Del.
• Rolf Erik Nilsson, University of Tasmania, Australia
• Christopher Nnadozie Njoku, Linkoping University, Sweden
• M. Elizabeth Palmer, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
• Akafete Teklyu Fite, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia