THE INFLUENCE OF HUMAN VARIABILITY UPON FOOD SAFETY LEGISLATION

This paper considers the influence of human variations in the kinetics and dynamics of chemicals in food upon the formulation of food safety legislation. Legislation is designed to protect and benefit all and n ot solely specific groups or individuals within the population. A cons ideration of the adequacy of the safety factors used to calculate Acce ptable Daily intake (ADI) leads on to the discussion of those circumst ances in which a part of the population may exceed the ADI for a parti cular chemical. The conclusion is that the ADI does take human variabi lity into consideration and that current legislation is satisfactory a nd made more so through the surveillance of dietary additive and conta minant intakes in man.