A Joint Meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Panel of Experts on Pesticide Residues in Food and the Environment and the World Health Organization (WHO) Core Assessment Group on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) was held at WHO Headquarters, Geneva (Switzerland), from 9 to 13 May 2016.
The meeting was opened by Dr Kazuaki Miyagishima, Director of the Department of Food Safety and Zoonoses, WHO, who welcomed participants on behalf of the Directors General of WHO and FAO. Dr Miyagishima stated that the meeting was convened to re-evaluate three compounds for which new studies had become available since their last full assessments. He reminded the participants of the importance of the functional separation between risk assessment and risk management and of the role that JMPR plays as the expert risk assessment body providing scientific advice to Codex and to Member States. He urged the participants to be guided by JMPR’s standing rules and procedures based on the weight of evidence approach. Dr Miyagishima thanked the participants for devoting significant time and effort to the work of JMPR, including the preparatory work of paramount importance that had taken place in the past months. He reminded the experts that they were invited as independent experts acting in their own individual capacities and not as representatives of their countries or organizations. He also reminded the participants of the confidential nature of the meeting, in order to allow experts to freely express their opinions.
During the meeting, the WHO Core Assessment Group was responsible for reviewing epidemiological, toxicological and related data in order to establish acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) and acute reference doses (ARfDs), where necessary. As no residue data were requested, the FAO Expert was responsible for estimating the dietary exposures (both short-term and long-term) to the pesticides reviewed and, on this basis, performed dietary risk assessments in relation to their ADIs or ARfDs.
The Meeting re-evaluated three pesticides, established ADIs and ARfDs and recommended them for use by the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR). The Meeting also considered issues related to the evaluation of genotoxicity and epidemiological studies in relation to the risk assessment of chemicals.
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