The international regulation of chemical contaminants in food

Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, Soborg 

Dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in fatty foods, methylmercury in fish, tetrabutyltin in molluscs or fumonisins in com products are some examples of chemical contaminants. Frequently problems concerning chemical contaminants in food reach the headlines of major newspapers and the reader may be left with a scare, sometimes with good reason, often not. In any event, those responsible for the sale of foods must be alert. They bear the responsibility for the safety of the foods they offer for sale, and they also know that any such alert may instantly influence the sale, whether the problem raised is more or less serious. 

An adequate supply of safe food is considered to be essential for everyone -more or less a right for all people. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development at its meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 adopted the Agenda 21 Strategy Document, which in Chapter 6 stresses specifically that particular attention should be directed towards food safety, with the priority placed on the elimination of food contamination.1 

Chemical contamination does not respect international borders. The contaminants are spread worldwide by air and water. Environmental organic contaminants and inorganic contaminants such as metals and metal compounds, nitrate and nitrite will be present in all foods, though sometimes in quantities below the limit of detection of the analytical methods of today. Moreover, foods as well as raw materials and ingredients for food production are to an increasing extent traded across borders. 

In 1961/62 the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) established the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) to elaborate international food standards and codes of practice for questions related to food. Questions concerning contaminants were dealt with, partly by the Commodity Committees and partly in the Codex Committee for Food Additives and Contaminants (CCFAC). The Codex Alimentarius system concerning contaminants is described in section 12.2. 

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Some recent developments and future trends in international regulation of chemical contaminants in food are discussed in section 12.5. It is attempted to foresee some issues that could be of interest and concern for food scientists and legislators dealing with contaminants in food in the early part of the new millennium. Certainly, persistent organic pollutants, many of which are chlorinated hydrocarbons, and some of which have been used in the past and in fact may still be used in parts of the world as pesticides, will be among those issues of justified concern. 

It is also significant that in connection with the development of the Codex GSCTF it was decided to use MLs and discontinue with the use of other terms like guideline levels . The same idea is expressed in the SPS Agreement where there is no distinction between the application of measures whether they are called international standards, guidelines or recommendations. In summary, the most important trends in international regulation of chemical contaminants in food are the trends towards ... 

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