Evaluation of certain food additives and contaminants. Forty-sixth report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives.

This report presents the conclusions of a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee convened to evaluate the safety of various food additives and contaminants, with a view to recommending acceptable daily intakes for humans, and to prepare specifications for the identity and purity of food additives. The first part of the report contains a general discussion of principles governing the toxicological evaluation of food additives and contaminants, including flavouring agents, and the establishment and revision of specifications, with comments concerning limits for arsenic, lead and heavy metals. The toxicological significance of proliferative lesions of the adrenal medulla in rats fed polyols and other poorly digestible carbohydrates is also discussed. A summary follows of the Committee's evaluations of toxicological data on various specific food additives (dodecyl, octyl and propyl gallate, glycerol ester of wood rosin, ethyl esters, isoamyl alcohol and related esters, allyl esters, alitame, konjac flour, benzyl acetate, benzyl alcohol, benzaldehyde, benzoic acid, the benzoate salts, and sucrose acetate isobutyrate) and the contaminants aflatoxins. Annexed to the report are a table summarizing the Committee's recommendations for acceptable daily intakes of these substances, changes in the status of specifications and further toxicological studies required, and toxicological data on the ethyl and isoamyl esters considered.