According to the institute's public relations office, the fourteenth meeting of the Codex committee on contaminants in Foods was held virtually on May 3-7, 2021. Dr. Ruhollah Karami Osboo, the faculty member of the Plant Diseases Research Department of the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, participated in this meeting as the spokesman of the Iranian team.

In this meeting, several issues such as: determining the permissible levels of contaminants such as aflatoxins in cereals, cadmium and lead in chocolate and cocoa, methylmercury in aquatics, radioactivity in food, especially drinking water, etc. were discussed.

One of the most important issues was the permissible limit for total aflatoxins in cereals and products containing certain grains, including foods for infants and young children, and due to insufficient information, including the proposed limit based on data from only a few countries and Lack of proper geographical coverage, failure to take into account parameters such as climate changes observed during various parts of the year, the decision to determine the permissible limit of total aflatoxin after clearing up the ambiguities, was postponed to be in the next  meeting to be held next year with the Brazilian presidency.

Also based on JECFA (Joint WHO / FAO Expert Committee on Food Additives) studies and EU representative explanations of the risk of contaminants such as trichotoxins (T2 Toxin and H2 Toxin) in cereals, tropane, alkaloids, and marine biotoxins, they were placed on the list of priorities for human health.