ANN ARBOR, MI -- NSF International, an influential, worldwide public health inspection organization based in Ann Arbor is celebrating 75 years in business.
The organization, which marked this milestone anniversary with a special event on Friday, Sept. 13, is primarily known for setting 100 national standards in food safety, water treatment and dietary supplements programs, CEO Kevan Lawlor said.
Most recently in Michigan, the nonprofit certified water filters for Flint residents to attach to their sinks, and is currently working to provide services to address Legionella outbreaks.
“We’ve developed a series of national standards that set requirements for reduction of contaminants through use of water filters, lead being one of those,” Lawlor said. “We worked with the city of Flint and the state to make sure the water filters … were NSF-certified. Water was tested in Flint after the use of our filters and reduced the levels of lead to the levels required by the EPA. They worked extremely well.”
NSF began as a local organization that expanded globally 15 years ago, Lawlor said. It develops standards and certifies products to ensure they’re safe and protect consumers and the general public.
“We needed to establish a local presence in key markets in Asia and Europe, more recently in Latin America ... to help local clients who are exporting food equipment products to the U.S. or Europe, but increasingly to address public health issues in those countries,” Lawlor said.
“It’s a significant milestone. It’s 75 years of protecting and improving human health.”
NSF also developed a standard for water filters to remove PFAS from drinking water.
Ann Arbor spending another $950K on PFAS filters for water plant
The continued presence of PFAS in the Huron River means Ann Arbor is going to keep installing new GAC filters.
“There are products in the marketplace that will reduce PFAS compounds. They would be similar, but there would be something about the construction or type of material that would address PFAS or lead,” Lawlor said.
Several major league sports organizations, including the NFL, NHL, MLB and PGA, have agreements with NSF that requires athletes who choose to take dietary supplements to only consume NSF-verified products.
NSF International became a resource for MLB in 2005 as the league struggled to find safe supplements for its athletes, said Tim Maxey, Joint Strength and Conditioning Coordinator for MLB and MLB Players Association.
“We were trying to see if we could support a program ... that would at least supply our athletes with supplements that are free of banned substances and what was on the label, was in the bottle,” Maxey said, adding that the precautions are about “safety, and not just whether it was drug free.”
Athletes also have the option to use the NSF Sport application, which allows users to check which items are certified, what’s in each product and where to purchase them. Players often purchase anything from multivitamins to supplements for muscle building or adding mass, Maxey said.
“There would be some issues or some challenges with tainted supplements and we can’t have athletes that thought they were taking something safe and then test positive for something they didn’t intend to do,” Maxey said. “That was a real concern."
McDonald’s Corp., which serves 70 million customers a day at 35,000 stores in 120 countries, also works with NSF, said to Cindy Jiang, senior director for global food and packaging safety.
Standards for coffee machines at McDonald’s are verified through NSF.
“Public health is about prevention,” Jiang said. “To prevent food-borne illnesses is a No. 1 priority for us.”
2019-09-15 11:58:00Z
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2019/09/mlb-mcdonalds-help-ann-arbors-nsf-international-celebrate-75-years.html
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