The acceptable daily intake of food additives.

Abstract

The Joint FAGWHO Expert Committee on Food Additives has evaluated in the past 15 years the acceptable daily intake of more than 200 food additives. This outstanding piece of work of major importance has marked a turning point in the field of the national and international public health policies concerning the control of the use of food additives and consequently the control also of food quality. It is of major importance therefore that the validity of such evaluations be fully recognized in scientific quarters. Because of certain aspects of the concept, namely the double range of safety margin of acceptable tolerance levels of these constituents in food, one unconditional and the other conditional, some doubt regarding the validity of the concept is liable to arise. A critical analysis of this aspect of the question is made, leading to the suggestion that with the exception of possibly a few cases, this double range of acceptability of an additive might usefully be dropped. At the same time a few other as...