Once these blocs introduce common regulations for food safety, contaminated food that is exported from non-bloc members with either no or poor quality food inspection systems can be prevented from reaching market. In the United States, a genetically engineered strain of aspergillus flavus that has no gene to produce aflatoxin is now being studied. The plan is to someday spread the artificially engineered fungus. Some say that it would be much easier to solve the problem if new technologies like those mentioned above could be directly applied to troubled areas in developing countries. Professor Ueno disagees and says such techniques should not be applied to developing countries until they can first guarantee a sufficient number of trained workers in the related fields.
Aflatoxin is definitely a menace to humans.
However, it is not known whether or not the toxin might actually benefit other organisms in the ecological system, particularly on a microscopic level. Fumonisin is another mycotoxin that is handled in the course. It causes immune deficiency disorders and activates carcinogenic substances. Fumonisin has attracted a great deal of attention not only within the scientific community but also from the public at large after a South African research group found that fumonisin was linked to cancer of the esophagus. The course's main objective is improving scientific analysis of fusarium, producing fumonisin, and thus lead to a higher level of inspection quality in each of the participants' countries.