The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA)

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) is an international scientific expert committee that is administered jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It has been meeting since 1956, initially to evaluate the safety of food additives. Its work now also includes the evaluation of contaminants, naturally occurring toxicants and residues of veterinary drugs in food.
To date, JECFA has evaluated more than 1500 food additives, approximately 40 contaminants and naturally occurring toxicants, and residues of approximately 90 veterinary drugs. The Committee has also developed principles for the safety assessment of chemicals in food that are consistent with current thinking on risk assessment and take account of recent developments in toxicology and other relevant scientific areas such as microbiology, biotechnology, exposure assessment, food chemistry including analytical chemistry and assessment of maximum residue limits for veterinary drugs.

The flow chart below shows the process flow for JECFA.

For food additives, including enzymes and flavouring agents, contaminants and naturally occurring toxicants, the Committee:

1. elaborates principles for evaluating their safety and for quantifying their risks;
2. conducts toxicological evaluations and establishes acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) or tolerable intakes for chronic exposure and other guidance values for acute exposure;
3. assesses the performance, quality and applicability of analytical methods;
4. prepares specifications of purity for food additives; and assesses exposure of populations to chemical substances in food.

For residues of veterinary drugs in food, the Committee:

1. elaborates principles for evaluating their safety and for quantifying their risks;
2. establishes ADIs and other guidance values for acute exposure;
3. recommends maximum residue limits (MRLs) for target tissues; and determines appropriate criteria for and evaluates methods of analysis for detecting and/or quantifying residues in food.

Modified presentation of John L. Herrman on Principles of Risk Assessment is given below:

Risk assessment is primarily under the responsibility of
scientific committees, e.g. JECFA and EFSA
Risk management is primarily under the responsibility of regulators, e.g. Codex committees and the European Commission
Risk communication is between risk assessors and managers, and with the public

Risk Assessment Process -I
Hazard identification:  Utilization of all available data to establish that a chemical has the apparent capacity to cause an adverse effect
Hazard characterization (dose-response relationship): Assessment of the relationship between dose, or level of exposure, and the incidence or severity of an effect
Exposure assessment:  Estimation of the dose, or level of a chemical in the environment to which various individuals, populations, or ecosystems are exposed
Risk characterization:  Estimation of the incidence and severity of the adverse effects that are liable to occur in a population or ecosystem due to actual or predicted exposure

Database evaluation for substances for which a threshold of toxicity exists
- NOAELs are identified in each study
- Relevance to humans is determined, if possible.
- In the absence of other information, the lowest NOAEL is used as the basis for the ADI  or TDI
- A safety factor is applied to the NOAEL when establishing an ADI or TDI (default: 100)

Acceptable and Tolerable Daily Intake
- Based on toxicological and related data
ADI: Allocated to food additives, pesticides and veterinary drugs
TDI: Allocated to some natural toxins, where chronic exposure is relevant
NOAEL: No observed-adverse-effect level

-Derived from the lowest relevant no observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL), to
which a safety factor is applied.

Represents a level of intake over a lifetime below which there is considered to be no
appreciable health hazard

Safety assessments I
- Establishment of the ADI (food additives and pesticides), TDI (contaminants) involves the first two steps of risk assessment.
- Intake is assessed by JECFA or JMPR to ensure that it does not exceed the ADI or TDI (long-term intake)
Safety assessments II
- When these reference points are not exceeded risk is characterized as being 'not appreciable'

Consideration of benefits I
- Potentially contaminated foods often provide important nutritional benefits
- Ideally, both benefits and risks are quantified by independent experts, which are then considered by risk managers when making decisions
Consideration of benefits II
- In the Codex system benefits are rarely evaluated quantitatively
- Groundbreaking activity may be active chlorine: CCFAC has asked FAO and WHO to assess both benefits and risks

Click here to see the 66th report of JECFA on evaluation of certain veterinary drug residues in food.

References

ftp://ftp.fao.org/ag/agn/jecfa/jecfa_2006-02.pdf
www.atal.tubitak.gov.tr/add/RiskassessmentIzmir%20hzs.pdf
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/WHO_TRS_925.pdf

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