Colorado State to take closer look at food safety

Fort Collins, Colo.

-- Colorado State University (CSU) will create a new international environmental medicine center that will allow faculty and students at the school to investigate the safety of foreign food products.

CSU's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will be a major player in the new partnership, which will combine efforts with the university, Japan's National Institute of Radiological Sciences and Gifu University School of Medicine.

The program is being created to study environmental factors that affect food supplies like the use of pesticides that are banned in the U.S. but permitted in foreign countries. Teams would assess how these chemicals are used in connection with foods and other goods that could be imported into the United States.

CSU's veterinary laboratories will be used to run tests on foreign products and asses manufacturing facilities in other countries.

The Center for Environmental Medicine will be a part of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences' Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences.