As part of the FAO JECFA Monographs series, the "Compendium of Food Additive Specifications" has just been published, containing specifications of identity and purity prepared at the 67th meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), held in Rome on 20-29 June 2006. During the meeting the "General Specifications and Considerations for Enzyme Preparations Used in Food Processing" were revised by the Committee, where e.g. recommendations for naming enzymes in JECFA specifications monographs, including enzymes from microorganisms containing recombinant DNA, were included and where the list of references to international documents pertaining to foods and food ingredients from plants and microorganisms containing recombinant DNA was updated. JECFA is an international expert scientific committee that has been meeting since 1956, initially to evaluate the safety of food additives and later to also include the evaluation of contaminants, naturally occurring toxicants and residues of veterinary drugs in food. See http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/a0675e/a0675e00.htm or contact [email protected] for more information.

06/02/2007