Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee

One of the few phytochemicals that has been subjected to the rigorous testing procedures required by food safety authorities is P-carotene, a naturally-occurring carotenoid that is also a pre-cursor of vitamin A in humans. It is increasingly used as a food colour since the food product can be claimed to contain all natural ingredients. For this reason, detailed toxicological studies were undertaken that enabled the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee for Food Additives (JECFA) to set an ADI of 0-5 mg/kg/bw/day based on a NOAEL of 50 mg/day and the application of an uncertainty factor of 10 (JECFA, 1974). This low factor was used because it was argued that the compound occurred naturally in food, that its use as a food additive would not lead to a substantial increase in the total amount normally consumed, and that there had been no reports of adverse effects in humans. The ADI would correspond to an acceptable intake in humans of up to 350 mg/day. 

JECFA (1974) Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. Evaluation of safety of synthetic beta-carotene. Evaluation 18/68. 

Penicilium oxalicum var. Armeniaca CCM 8242 strain produces an anthaquinone-type pigment related to carmine and patented as Arpink Red. The pigment is produced during batch submerse cultivation, harvested, and purified. It is presently under evaluation by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) for use as a food colorant. ... 

FAO/WHO Summary and conclusions, Joint FAO/WHO expert committee on food additives, Seventy-second meeting (2010) FAO/WHO, Rome, Italy, http //www.who.int/foodsafety/ chem/summary72 rev.pdf... 

FAO/WHO (2006) Summary and conclusions of the sixty-seventh meeting of the Joint FAO/ WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), 20-29 June 2006. JECFA, Rome... 

WHO. 1992. Technical Report Series 828. Evaluation of certain food additives and naturally occurring toxicants. Thirty-ninth report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on aTood additives. World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland. 

The control of food additives has been much discussed in newspapers and other parts of the media and yet, rather surprisingly, there have been few scientific books about additives. There have been detailed reports of the work of expert committees such as the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (e.g. WHO, 2000) and informative commentaries on individual additives and legislative controls, notably those in the European Union (EU) (e.g. Leatherhead Food Research Association, 2000). There have also been articles on work to harmonise worldwide control of additives (Keefe et al., 2000). 

Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants... 

Although the US is one of the few countries to have a formal system for monitoring adverse reactions from food additives as part of its regulatory structure, other countries also periodically review additives. In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) also monitors food additives. Since 1956, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives has developed specifications for the purity of additives, evaluated toxicological data, and recommended safe levels of use. 

In fact, the results of nearly 200 toxicological and clinical studies have demonstrated the safety of aspartame. Its use has been endorsed by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, American Medical Association, American Heart Association, and numerous other health agencies. It is consumed in more than 90 countries worldwide and is an ingredient in over 1,000 products. Nevertheless, perhaps because of its widespread use (half the US population regularly consumes products sweetened with aspartame) or negative publicity, it is second only to olestra in the number of adverse reaction complaints it has generated through ARMS (Table 7.1). 

The standards and limits adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission are intended for formal acceptance by governments in accordance with its general principles. Codex Alimentarius permits only those antioxidants which have been evaluated by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) for use in foods. Antioxidants may be used only in foods standardised by Codex. The antioxidant provisions of Codex Commodity Standards are included in and superseded by the provision of this Standard. Food categories or individual foods where the use of additives are not allowed or are restricted are defined by this Standard. The primary objective of establishing permitted levels of use of antioxidants in various food groups is to ensure that the intake does not exceed the acceptable daily intake (ADI). 

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee determined that PTWI for mercury via all possible physiological routes should not exceed 5 pg per g of body weight, and only two thirds may be in the form of a methyl derivative (WHO, 1993). 

All food products contain some lead. They usually do not exceed the level of 0.1 to 0.2 pg per g, although venison may contain up to several pg per g due to its contamination via ammunition. In order to lower lead intake in Poland, the highest allowed concentrations have been established for various food products, within a range from 0.2 pg per g (for milk) to 2 pg per g (dried fungi). For most products, the values are set between 0.1 and 0.3 pg per g (Dz. U., 2003). The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee calculated that lead PTWI should not exceed 25 pg per g of body weight (WHO, 1993). It is particularly important that infants and children should be protected against the possibility of lead uptake. 

At present, Polish standards only limit zinc content in juices and nectars. The maximum limit for zinc in these products is 5 pg per g (Dz. U., 2003). The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee recommends the PTWI should not exceed 7000 pg per g (7 mg per g) of body weight (WHO, 1989). 

At present, Polish standards limit the content of tin only in food products packed in tin-coated containers, and in fruit and vegetable preserves, and products including such preserves, packed in other materials (Dz. U., 2003). The content of tin in products intended for children up to the age of three must not exceed 10 pg per g, and for other products it must not exceed 100 pg per g (for food in tin-coated packing) or 20 pg per g (for food in other types of packing). The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee established the PTWI value for tin as 14,000 pg per g (14 mg per g) of body weight (WHO, 1989). 

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Addihves (JECFA) is an international expert scientihc committee that is administered jointly by FAO and WHO. It has been meeting regularly since 1956, inihally to evaluate the safety of food addihves. Its work now also includes the evaluation of contaminants, naturally occurring toxicants, and residues of veterinary drugs in food. These evaluations are collected in a report published after each JECFA meeting (Section 3.6.1.3) (JECFA 2006). 

Toxicological evaluations of food additives and of contaminants, naturally occurring toxicants and residues of veterinary drugs in food produced by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), and of pesticide residues in food by the Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) are used by the Codex Alimentarius Commission and national governments to set international food standards and safe levels for protection of the consumer. 

The stmcmre-based, tiered TTC approach as outlined by Munro et al. (1996, 1999) is used by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) in a procedure for the evaluation of flavoring substances in food, including an acceptance of the general TTC of 1.5 pg/person/day, i.e., the US-FDA Threshold of Regulation (Section 4.13.1). The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) also uses this approach for evaluation of flavoring substances, except that the general TTC of 1.5 pg/person/day is not accepted (Larsen 2006). 

In 1961, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and the Joint Meeting of Experts on Pesticides Residues (JMPR) adopted this approach in a slightly modified form The safe level was called the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) and expressed in mg/kg body weight per day (Vermeire et al. 1999, ECETOC 2003). Usually, a safety factor of 100 is used by JECFA and JMPR for establishing ADIs by this ADI approach however, the procedures adopted by JECFA and JMPR do not generate a clear justification for deviation from the factor of 100, but in some individual cases, an expert explanation is given for the use of factors other than 100 (Vermeire et al. 1999). 

Similarly, in order to avoid any quantitative estimate, an MOE approach has been recommended by, e.g., JECFA (the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives) and EFSA (the European Food Safety Authority) in the assessment of compounds that are both genotoxic and carcinogenic by using a benchmark dose (BMD) approach to estimate the BMDLio (benchmark dose lower limit) representing the lower bound of a 95% confidence interval on the BMD corresponding to a 10% tumor incidence (see Section 6.4). 

The OECD conversion factors, which are summarized in Table 7.12, are used by, e.g., the EU s Scientific Committee for Eood (SCE), the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Eood Additives (JECEA), and the Joint EAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) in their evaluations of food additives, contaminants, and pesticides. 

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) was established in 1955 to consider chemical, toxicological, and other aspects of contaminants and residues of veterinary drugs in foods for human consumption. The Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants and the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Dmgs in Foods identify food additives, contaminants, and veterinary drug residues that should receive priority evaluation and refer them to JECFA for assessment before incorporating them into Codex standards. 

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