The FDA Surveillance Index for Pesticides: establishing food monitoring priorities based on potential health risk.

Through an approach called the Surveillance Index (SI), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is systematically evaluating the potential health risk of pesticides that may be present as residues in foods. The SI is being used as a primary tool in the establishment of monitoring priorities. Each pesticide is classified and assigned to one of 5 levels of potential risk. The SI documents that are prepared for individual pesticides summarize the information used to assess potential dietary exposure and health risk, provide the rationale for the assigned classification, and identify needs and actions necessary to accomplish appropriate monitoring of the food supply. Reasons are described for the development of the SI, the content of the SI Documents, and the use of the SI in planning and redirecting FDA pesticide monitoring activities.