The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization convened a Joint Expert Consultation on the Risks and Benefits of Fish Consumption from 25 to 29 January 2010. The tasks of the Expert Consultation were to review data on levels of nutrients (long-chain omega-3 fatty acids) and specific chemical contaminants (methylmercury and dioxins) in a range of fish species and to compare the health benefits of fish consumption and nutrient intake with the health risks associated with contaminants present in fish. The Expert Consultation drew a number of conclusions regarding the health benefits and health risks associated with fish consumption and recommended a series of steps that Member States should take to better assess and...

Biotoxins produced by certain algal species can be accumulated by bivalve molluscs. This constitutes one of the major public health risks that need to be managed during shellfish production. With a view to aiding risk assessment, monitoring and surveillance programmes, this paper provides a range of information about the various biotoxins globally recorded in shellfish: levels detected, toxicological data, methods of analysis for detection and quantification of toxins, and the risk assessment approach for public health management. The complex chemical nature of the toxins, along with several analogues, hampers the development and validation of methods for their detection, for the evaluation of their toxicity and for the development of limits for shellfish safety management. This paper also illustrates the approach...

This document contains food additive specifications monographs, analytical methods and other information, prepared at the seventy-fourth meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which was held in Rome, Italy, from 14 to 23 June 2011. The specifications monographs provide information on the identity and purity of food additives used directly in foods or in food production. The main three objectives of these specifications are to identify the food additive that has been subjected to testing for safety, to ensure that the additive is of the quality required for use in food or in processing, and to reflect and encourage good manufacturing practice. This publication and other documents produced by JECFA contain information that is useful to...

There is global recognition of the need to continually strengthen food control systems based on the risk analysis approach. Central to this approach is the identification and prioritisation of food safety risks to the population of a given country, and the adoption of cost effective control measures to minimise risks to consumer health, consumer welfare, food trade and market access. Adopting risk analysis approaches often requires a shift in the approach of both public and private sectors to food safety control, and has implications for infrastructure, technical know-how and training, and the use of food control resources.

The specific objectives of the meeting were to: • Review the existing risk assessments on EHEC in terms of (a) their fulfilling their scope and providing the basis for scientifically-based risk-management actions; and (b) their potential application (in whole or on a modular basis) to the development of a risk assessment at the international level. • Consider the risk management actions, if any, taken to date that were based on risk assessment and identify the strengths and weakness of the risk assessments from a risk management perspective, in particular identifying when and why the risk assessments did not meet the needs of risk managers. • Identify the key issues currently faced by risk managers in terms of addressing the problems...

The monographs contained in this volume were prepared at the seventy-second meeting of the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/ World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which met at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, on 16-25 February 2010. These monographs summarize the data on selected food contaminants reviewed by the Committee. The seventy-second report of JECFA has been published by the World Health Organization as WHO Technical Report No. 959. Reports and other documents resulting from previous meetings of JECFA are listed in Annex 1. The participants in the meeting are listed in Annex 3 of the present publication.