Summary
The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives 61st meeting (Rome, June 2003, report published 2004 as WHO TRS 922) re-evaluated methylmercury and established the international provisional tolerable weekly intake of 1.6 µg MeHg/kg body weight per week, replacing the prior PTWI of 3.3 µg/kg/wk. The 1.6 µg/kg/wk PTMI is anchored on developmental neurotoxicity observed in cohort studies of children exposed in utero through maternal seafood consumption (Faroe Islands and Seychelles cohorts), with a 6.4 µg MeHg/L maternal hair concentration as the no-observed-adverse-effect level translated to dietary intake.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| PTWI | 1.6 µg MeHg/kg b.w./week |
| Prior PTWI (replaced) | 3.3 µg MeHg/kg b.w./week |
| Critical endpoint | Developmental neurotoxicity (in utero exposure through maternal seafood) |
| Cohort basis | Faroe Islands and Seychelles |
| Maternal hair NOAEL anchor | 6.4 µg MeHg/L (calculated from BMDL) |
| Establishing meeting | JECFA 61st (June 2003) |
| Report | WHO Technical Report Series 922, 2004 |
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Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | major | 3 sections added; narrative text revised |