Health Organisation Joint Expert Committee

The risk to health from chemicals in food can be assessed by comparing estimates of dietary exposure with recommended safe levels of exposure. For most metals and other elements, these are the Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intakes (PTWIs) and the Provisional Tolerable Daily Intakes (PTDIs) recommended by the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations and the World Health Organisation International Programme on Chemical Safety (JECFA). The European Commission s Scientific Committee on Food has established other relevant safe levels. These are Acceptable Daily Intakes (ADIs) for chemicals added to food, and Tolerable Daily Intakes (TDIs) for chemical contaminants. The use of the term tolerable implies permissibility rather than acceptability. All the above recommendations are estimates of the amount of substance that can be ingested over a lifetime without appreciable risk, expressed on a daily or weekly basis as appropriate. 

World Health Organisation UK Pesticides Safety Directorate UK Food Standards Agency Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST)... 

JECFA (1983) Evaluation of certain food additives and contaminants. Twenty-seventh report of the Joint EAOAVHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. World Health Organisation, Technical Report Series 696. 

World Health Organisation, Specifications for the Identity and Purity of Food Additives and Their Toxicological Evaluation Some Antibiotics, 12th Report Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, WHO Technical Report Series 430, 1969 (available at... 

The source of international food standards. Codex Alimentarius, is pubHshed by the Food and Agricultural Organization and World Health Organization (FAOAVHO) of the United Nations. In Europe, the sources of food standards are EU directives. The Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC) deals with the issue of additives, contaminants and natural toxins in food, and also proposes the Maximum Residue Level (MRL, in mg/kg food) for food additives, for example, in the case of arbitration of the World Trade Organisation. The advisory body of CCFAC is the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), composed of experts from Member States and Associated Countries of the FAO/WHO. Recommendations for the EU come from a committee of experts nominated by an authority called the Scientific Committee for Food (SCF). These recommendations are converted into legislative form in different countries. In the United States, for example, the source of food standards is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

World Health Organisation, Evaluation of certain veterinary drug residues in food. Forty-fifth Report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, Technical Report Series, 864, 1996, WHO, Geneva. 

---