100) The Committee recalled that the 30th Session had accepted the offer of the United Kingdom to develop the document further, and noted that only a few comments had been received due to late circulation. The Delegation of the United Kingdom introduced the revised document, pointing out that its main purpose was to provide guidance in methodology and principles for exposure assessment as an annex to the General Standard.
101) Some delegations felt that the methodology used in the document should be simplified and more transparent. The delegation of France offered to prepare a discussion paper on the distribution-curve of contaminants in foods in collaboration with WHO. It was noted that as the Delegation of France was a member of the drafting group for this paper, their contribution could be provided to the United Kingdom for inclusion in the revised paper.
102) In response to the comments from several delegations on the use of food balance sheets based on regional diets as proposed by the United Kingdom, the Representative of WHO pointed out that the latest revision of these sheets would be presented to the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues in April 1999 (CX/PR 99/3).
103) Some delegations and the Observer from Consumers International expressed their concern as to whether the food-intake data also represented infants and children. The WHO Representative pointed out that the food intake data were actually overestimating the real exposure and invited countries to provide relevant data for inclusion in the GEMS/Foods database.
104) The Committee decided that the Delegation of the United Kingdom, assisted by a Drafting Group[19], would revise the document in the light of the comments received and the above discussion; the intent and objectives of the paper needed to be carefully considered by the Drafting Group. The Committee agreed that the redrafted document would be presented in the form of an annex to the General Standard for Contaminants and Toxins in Foods.
