11. The Expert Committee evaluated the toxicity of five food additives, one nutritional supplement, 184 flavouring agents in two groups using the Procedure for the Safety Evaluation of Flavouring Agents, and three contaminants (lead, methylmercury, and zearalenone). The intakes of four other food additives (annatto extracts, canthaxanthin, erythrosine, and iron oxides) were also assessed. The summary report was published in July 1999.
12. The existing provisional tolerable weekly intakes (PTWIs) for lead and methylmercury were maintained. A quantitative risk assessment of lead was performed, based on a relationship between lead in the diet, blood lead levels, and decrement in median IQ. The Expert Committee concluded that the current levels of lead in food would have very little impact on neurobehavioral development of infants and children, the most vulnerable group. The Expert Committee stressed that a full risk assessment should take other sources of lead into account.
13. Ongoing epidemiology studies on methylmercury were evaluated, but they did not provide sufficient information to evaluate the neurodevelopmental effects in offspring of mothers with "low" intakes of methylmercury. The Expert Committee recommended that this contaminant be re-evaluated in 2002 to consider a later assessment of the cohort in one of the studies and other information that may become available by that time.
14. The role of JECFA in the risk analysis process was discussed extensively at the Expert Committee, and a section on this topic was included in the summary report. Principles governing the intake assessment of contaminants were also included.
15. The Expert Committee concluded that there was no safety concern at current levels of intake for all 184 flavouring agents that were evaluated. Specifications were prepared for these substances, of which approximately 80 were given full specifications and the remainder were given tentative specifications. Thirty-six other food additives were considered for specifications only, of which 33 were given new or revised specifications, two were retained (carotenes, algae and carotenes, vegetable) and one (calcium hydrogen sulfite) was withdrawn.
16. The Expert Committee commented that residual ethanol limits should be included in specifications and that it would initiate review of heavy metals limits in emulsifiers at the fifty-fifth meeting of JECFA. The Expert Committee reaffirmed the requirement that microbial strain numbers on enzymes prepared from genetically modified organisms might impose unnecessary constraints on the development of production organisms for food-grade enzymes and therefore amended the requirement for microbial strain numbers in the specifications section of Appendix B to Annex 1 in the specifications that have been published.[7]
17. A delegation expressed the need for the reports to be published in a more timely manner. The JECFA Secretariat stated that efforts were underway to publish them more quickly. The JECFA Secretariat noted that more extensive information of interest to CCFAC than in the past was now included in the summaries so that this information was disseminated quickly.
