Explains the principles, concepts, and definitions used by the Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) when assessing toxicological data on pesticide residues in food and establishing acceptable daily intakes. Intended to guide the design and interpretation of relevant toxicological studies, the book alerts readers to the multiplicity of factors, from the endocrinology of the animal species to the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of the pesticide, that can influence the validity of a study and determine its relevance to safety assessment. The book has twelve main chapters. Readers are first introduced to the history of JMPR and the procedures followed in safety evaluations. Subsequent chapters present principles, supported by a detailed explanation of their rationale and changes over time, governing considerations of identity, purity, and stability, the availability and quality of data, the place of human data in toxicology assessment, and the use of structure-activity relationships. The most extensive chapter, which runs some 40 pages, provides a step-by-step guide through the battery of test methodologies currently used in the safety assessment of pesticide residues. Both classical experiments and very new tests in the fields of immunotoxicity and behavioural toxicity are critically reviewed in terms of their capacity to contribute to the safety assessment. Other chapters explain principles governing the extrapolation of animal data to humans, the allocation of an acceptable daily intake, the evaluation of mixtures, and the re-evaluation of pesticides. The book concludes with a discussion of principles for dealing with microbial pest-control agents and bioengineered organisms, followed by advice on the special methodological problems posed by the organophosphates, bipyridilium compounds, and goitrogenic carcinogens.

chi eng rus.

jpn.

WHODOC

WHO monograph

4