Abstract

Food contaminations are global problems that arise from industrial pollu­tion, agricultural practices, or from food preparation and storage processes. Food contamination may lead to adverse health effects and there is consid­erable effort on the part of governments and industry to minimize the level of contamination. A joint Food Contamination Monitoring and Assessment Programme under the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in conjunction with FAO and WHO was established in 1976. There are increases in numbers of 40 countries participating the programme in 1992. The main objectives of the Programme is to be informed about levels and trends of contamination in food, their contribution to total human exposure and significance with regard to public health and trade. The Programme have been concerned with levels of priority chemicals in foods of major dietary importance and a significant portion of the data concerns the estimated total dietary intake of those contaminants selected for further comparison with toxicologically available standards or tolerance intake levels.