Joint Meetings of Experts

The WHO/FAO Joint Meeting of Experts on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) has given recommendations on interpretation of cholinesterase inhibition (FAO 1998, 1999), see Section 4.7.7.3.1. 

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). 

As this paper is primarily concerned with the activities of Joint Meetings of Experts (JMPR), it seems sufficient to record that since 1966 the CCPR has held ten sessions of intergovernmental discussions aiming at common limits for residues of pesticides in food commodities. They have been based on the recommendations of Joint FAO/WHO Meetings of Experts which have been used throughout this time as an independent international source of scientific advice relating to the occurrence of residues of pesticides in food. 

FAOAVHO. 1976. Pesticide residues in food. Report of the 1975 Joint Meeting of the FAO Working Party of Experts on Pesticides Residues and the WHO Expert Committee on Pesticide Residues. Geneva, Switzerland Food and Agricultural Orgaiuzafion of the United Nations and World Health Organization. FAO Plant Production and Protection Series no. 1, WHO Technical Report Series no. 592. 

FAO/WHO. 1991. Pesticide residues in food-Disulfoton. Report of the Joint Meeting of the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and a WHO Expert Group on Pesticide Residues. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization, Rome, Italy. Pp. 151 -172. 

Reports of the Joint Meeting of the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the WHO Core Assessment Group (2003) and (2000)... 

World Meteorological y Organization (WMO) (1991) Global atmospheric watch No. 72. Report of the WMO meeting of experts on the atmospheric part of the Joint UN response to the Kuwait oil field fires. Geneva, April 17-30, 1991... 

FAO and WHO followed in 1961 and 1963". Since 1965 they have been held annually. Each session is formally entitled a Joint Meeting of the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues and the Environment with the WHO Expert Committee (or Panel) on Pesticide Residues but they are more usually referred to as FAO/WHO Joint Meetings on Pesticide Residues (JMPR). 

Because this is a scientific symposium I have specifically chosen to dwell on the activities of the Joint FAO/WHO Meeting of Experts rather than those of the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues, which is the inter-governmental body to which JMPR provides scientific and technical advice. Having worked and held responsibilities—either as an invited member, as a consultant or as... 

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