Evaluating the safety of food constituents

The Scientific Committee for the Food Safety Council has proposed a system of evaluating the safety of defined constituents of food. It is intended to apply to natural components of food, additives, contaminants, pesticides, or even bacterial toxins. It should also apply to residues in food from drugs for animals. The system consists of testing for acute toxicity, then mutagenesis in parallel with studies of metabolism and pharmacokinetics, then subacute toxicity along with teratogenesis and reproductive effects, and finally chronic toxicity. It is not necessary to carry out the entire procedure if enough evidence is developed at intermediate points to rule the material in or out. Criteria are included for these decisions. The system uses a mathematical model to characterize the dose/response relationship for all effects, with differences in the relationship reflected by two parameters in the model. One of these describes slope, the other, shape (concavity). It is built around the gamma function.