During the past ten years, considerable advancements have been achieved in the development of quantitative risk assessments for microbial pathogens in the food supply. More recently, new risk-based management concepts and approaches have been introduced, including the application of food safety objectives (FSOs), performance objectives (POs), and performance criteria (PCs) in order to relate public health goals to the level of stringency required for food safety measures and systems. From these parameters, food safety controls such as process criteria, product criteria and microbiological criteria may be derived. Risk assessments provide the basis for risk-based management options, however, guidelines, methods and practical examples of using risk assessment outputs toward these goals are lacking.

Listeria monocytogenes is a gram positive, facultatively anaerobic, psychrotrophic bacterial species that is capable of causing life-threatening septicaemia and meningitis in adult humans, and infections in foetuses and neonates that can lead to spontaneous abortions, foetal death, and septicaemia. This is typically a disease of specific high risk subpopulations with depressed or altered immune responses due to age, pregnancy, medical interventions, or chronic, immunosuppressive diseases (e.g., diabetes, HIV infections). In the past 20 years it has been established that the primary route of transmission for this pathogenic microorganism is food, with ready-to-eat foods that support the growth of the bacterium representing the greatest risk to the consumer; i.e., foods with high levels of L. monocytogenes are much more likely to...

The Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) has requested that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the united Nations and the World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) provide scientific advice on how Performance Objectives (PO) and Performance Criteria (PC) can be utilized to achieve Food Safety Objectives (FSO). The ultimate goal is to produce a reference document that will assist CCFH and countries in using risk assessment to develop risk management measures. This Working Group was assigned the task of interpreting data and information on Vibrio vulnificus illness associated with the consumption of oysters, including the FAO/WHO Risk Assessment of Vibrio vulnificus in Raw Oysters (FAO/WHO, 2005), and transforming it into practical guidance that can be used by risk managers to elaborate...

All Codex Members and observers are encouraged to participate in the process to develop Codex texts, through sending written comments and attendance at meetings. However, Codex sessions are complex events and require good preparation to ensure smooth operation and timely decision making. This document aims to assist those who are attending a Codex meeting for the first time.

This volume contains specifications of identity and purity prepared at the 65th meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), held in Geneva, 7 - 16 June 2005. These specifications should be considered only in conjunction with the report of the above meeting which will be printed in the WHO Technical Report Series. Toxicological monographs of the substances considered at the 65th meeting of JECFA will be published in the WHO Food Additives Series. The general principles applied in the elaboration of specifications established at the earlier JECFA sessions have been published in the Principles for the Safety Assessment of Food Additives and Contaminants in Food, WHO Environmental Health Criteria, No. 70, 1987. The specifications of identity...