CODEX GENERAL STANDARD FOR CONTAMINANTS AND TOXINS (Agenda Item 12)

REPORT OF THE AD HOC WORKING GROUP ON CONTAMINANTS AND TOXINS IN FOOD[17]

93) The report of the Ad hoc Working Group established by the last session with Denmark as Chair, Brazil as co-chair and Australia and the Netherlands as Rapporteurs was presented by its Chairman, Dr. Torsten Berg, who indicated that its essential objective was to achieve progress in developing the General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Foods, making recommendations to the Committee on Maximum Levels for individual contaminants in various foods.

94) The Committee agreed on the goals and terms of reference of the ad hoc Working Group as follows, noting that the responsibility for implementing the Standard belonged to member countries:

The goals:

• to achieve progress in the further developing of the General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Foods, and

• to bring forward information on contaminants for decision-making in the plenary Session of the CCFAC.

The terms of reference:

• to discuss and, if necessary, to put forward proposals concerning the refinement of the General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Foods,

• to discuss and make recommendations to the plenary Session of the CCFAC with relation to position and discussion papers, current maximum levels and Codes of Practice as well as draft standards for contaminants and toxins in foods,

• to review proposals for contaminants and toxins for the JECFA Priority List and make recommendations for prioritization to the plenary Session of the CCFAC, through the ad hoc Working Group on JECFA Priorities, and

• to discuss and make recommendations to the plenary Session of the CCFAC on other matters concerning contaminants and toxins in food as may be requested by the plenary.

95) The Committee agreed that the General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Food would be kept under review and included on the Agenda of the next session. The Committee noted that the Secretariat would publish the final sections of the GSCT in the revised Codex Volume 1A in the near future so there was no need to update the document prepared by the Delegation of the Netherlands and including these sections.

96) As proposed by the Working Group, the Committee recommended that relevant Commodity Committees take appropriate steps to remove the provisions concerning zinc, copper and iron from the Contaminants section from all commodity standards as these should rather be considered as quality parameters, and could be included as such in the standards if needed.

97) The Committee agreed to take up fumonisins as future work and accepted the offer of the Delegation of the United States to develop a position paper on fumonisins.

98) The Committee decided to re-install the ad hoc Working Group for the next session, expressing its appreciation for its work and that of its Chairman. Some delegations made remarks about the structure of the Working Group and proposed a more formal approach, similar to that taken in the Committee on Food Labelling. The Chairman of the Committee referred to the ad hoc nature of the Working Group but agreed to take these comments into account in the future.

99) The Representative of WHO informed the Committee that an International Total Diet Workshop cosponsored by the US Food and Drugs Administration and WHO in cooperation with PAHO, would be held from July 26 to August 6, 1999 in Kansas City, USA. The Workshop would consider national experiences in conducting total diet studies with a view to developing harmonized approaches and to promote consistency and comparability in study results. The Representative indicated that the results of the Workshop would be useful as regards dietary intake of contaminants and pesticides, but also for nutrients and additives, and invited interested countries to participate in this important event.