A Joint Meeting of the FAO Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the WHO Core Assessment Group (JMPR) was held at WHO Headquarters, Geneva (Switzerland) from 15 to 24 September 2003. The Panel Members of FAO and WHO had met in preparatory sessions from 10 to 14 September.
The Meeting was opened by Dr Maged Younes, Senior Adviser, Health and Environment, Department of Protection of the Human Environment, WHO. On behalf of FAO and WHO, Dr Younes thanked the participants for providing their expertise and for the significant time and effort put into this important activity. He noted that on the Meeting agenda there were a number of important issues for consideration, that would result in recommendations to the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR), as well as to Member States.
Dr Younes referred to resolution WHA56.23 of the last World Health Assembly, 2003, which noted that the rise in global distribution of food is linked to an increased need for internationally agreed assessments and guidelines related to food safety and nutrition. The resolution emphasized the lead responsibility of WHO, in collaboration with the FAO, for the provision of sound scientific assessments of food hazards, as a basis for risk management on a national and international level. Dr Younes stressed that this was a clear recognition of the importance and relevance of the work of the JMPR.
Closing remarks were made by Dr Margaret Chan, Director of the Department of Protection of the Human Environment, WHO, who congratulated the participants on a successful Meeting and emphasized the importance of the output of this Meeting, not only for work at the Codex Alimentarius Commission, but also for national public health authorities.
The Meeting was held in pursuance of recommendations made by previous Meetings and accepted by the governing bodies of FAO and WHO that studies should be undertaken jointly by experts to evaluate possible hazards to humans arising from the occurrence of residues of pesticides in foods. The reports of previous Joint Meetings (see Annex 5) contain information on acceptable daily intakes (ADIs), maximum residue limits (MRLs), and the general principles that have been used for evaluating pesticides. The supporting documents (residue and toxicological evaluations) contain detailed monographs on these pesticides and include evaluations of analytical methods.
During the Meeting, the FAO Panel of Experts was responsible for reviewing residue and analytical aspects of the pesticides under consideration, including data on their metabolism, fate in the environment, and use patterns, and for estimating the maximum levels of residues that might occur as a result of use of the pesticides according to good agricultural practice. The estimation of maximum residue levels and supervised trials median residues (STMR) values for commodities of animal origin was elaborated. The WHO Core Assessment Group was responsible for reviewing toxicological and related data and for estimating acceptable daily intakes (ADIs), and if necessary acute reference doses (RfD), where possible.
The Meeting evaluated 23 pesticides, including four new compounds and nine compounds that were re-evaluated within the periodic review programme of the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR) for toxicity or residues, or both.
The Meeting allocated ADIs and acute reference doses (RfDs), estimated MRLs and recommended them for use by the CCPR, and estimated STMR and highest residue (HR) levels as a basis for estimating dietary intakes.
The Meeting devoted particular attention to estimating the dietary intakes (both short-term and long-term) of the pesticides reviewed in relation to their ADIs or acute RfDs. In particular, for compounds undergoing a complete evaluation or re-evaluation, it distinguished between those for which the estimated intake is below the ADI and those for which the intake might exceed the ADI. Footnotes are used to indicate those pesticides for which the available information indicates that the ADI might be exceeded, and footnotes are used to denote specific commodities in which the available information indicates that the acute RfD of the pesticide might be exceeded. A proposal to make this distinction and its rationale are described in detail in the reports of the 1997 JMPR (Annex 5, reference 80, section 2.3) and 1999 JMPR (Annex 5, reference 86, section 2.2). Additional considerations are described in the report of the 2000 JMPR (Annex 5, reference 89, sections 2.1-2.3).
