JECFA — Methylmercury Provisional Tolerable Weekly Intake (1.6 µg/kg b.w./week)

Overview

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives, at its 61st meeting in June 2003 (report published 2004 as WHO Technical Report Series 922), established the provisional tolerable weekly intake for methylmercury at 1.6 µg MeHg/kg body weight per week, replacing the prior PTWI of 3.3 (JECFA 61st). The PTWI is anchored on developmental neurotoxicity observed in cohort studies of children exposed in utero through maternal seafood consumption (Faroe Islands and Seychelles cohorts), translated from a maternal hair NOAEL of 6.4 µg MeHg/L through standard pharmacokinetic conversion (JECFA 61st).

The EFSA 2012 re-evaluation lowered the EU TWI to 1.3 µg/kg b.w./week with adjustment for n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid coefficients in fish (EFSA Hg 2012); the JECFA 1.6 PTWI remains the international Codex-aligned value (JECFA 61st).

Sources

• JECFA 61st — JECFA 61st meeting, 2003 (WHO TRS 922, 2004). Evaluation of Certain Food Additives and Contaminants.

References

Works cited in this page’s text, in first-appearance order. This is not the full corpus for this page; it is only what the prose above draws on. The complete set of sources is listed under Sources below. Each title links to its source record, which carries the ingest receipt, the extracted values, and the file hash of the document it was built from.

1. Evaluation of Certain Food Additives and Contaminants (Methylmercury), 61st Meeting of JECFAJoint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives · WHO Technical Report Series 922 · 2004 · doi.org/10.1016/s0168-1605(03)00167-3Government
2. Scientific Opinion on the Risk for Public Health Related to the Presence of Mercury and Methylmercury in FoodEFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) · EFSA Journal 2012;10(12):2985 · 2012 · doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2012.2985Government

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