JECFA 2006 - Cadmium maximum-level impact and inorganic tin
JECFA’s 64th report is a primary international committee source for two HMI-relevant questions. First, it models how proposed Codex cadmium maximum levels for rice, wheat, potatoes, vegetables, and molluscs would affect dietary cadmium intake. The committee concluded that the proposed Codex MLs would reduce mean cadmium intake by only about 1% of the then-current PTWI, because the limits mostly trim the high tail rather than changing the central distribution. Second, it re-evaluates inorganic tin in canned foods and beverages, concluding that an acute reference dose is inappropriate because gastrointestinal irritation depends more on tin concentration and product chemistry than on body-weight-normalized dose. The tin section is directly relevant to canned-food and canned-beverage routing, but it must not be mixed with organotin evidence.
Key numbers
Cadmium intake and maximum-level context:
| Parameter | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Historical JECFA cadmium PTWI used in this report | 7 ug/kg bw/week | Later superseded by the 2010 JECFA PTMI of 25 ug/kg bw/month |
| Total cadmium intake estimated at JECFA 61st | 2.8-4.2 ug/kg bw/week | Equivalent to 40-60% of the historical PTWI |
| Main commodity contributors | 7 groups | Rice, wheat, root vegetables, tuber vegetables, leafy vegetables, other vegetables, and molluscs |
| Contribution of those seven groups | 40-85% of total cadmium intake | Across the five GEMS/Food regional diets |
| Proposed Codex ML impact on mean intake | about 1% of PTWI reduction | Committee conclusion |
| One-level-lower ML impact | no more than 6% of PTWI reduction | Highest reductions for wheat grain and potatoes |
| Proposed Codex ML maximum violative share | 9% of commodity | Oysters were the largest share above proposed ML |
| One-level-lower ML violative share | about 25% | Molluscs, potatoes, and other vegetables |
Cadmium occurrence inputs and proposed Codex MLs:
| Commodity / group | Baseline mean Cd (mg/kg) | Proposed Codex ML (mg/kg) | Impact at proposed ML |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rice, all data combined | 0.061 | 0.4 | 2% lower mean concentration; <1% samples above ML; 1% PTWI intake reduction |
| Wheat grain | 0.054 | 0.2 | 6% lower mean; 1% above ML; 1% PTWI intake reduction |
| Potatoes | 0.037 | 0.1 | 8% lower mean; 2% above ML; 1% PTWI intake reduction |
| Stem/root vegetables excluding potatoes and celeriac | 0.028 | 0.1 | 16% lower mean; 4% above ML; 2% PTWI intake reduction |
| Leafy vegetables | 0.040 | 0.2 | 7% lower mean; 1% above ML; intake effect not evaluated |
| Other vegetables excluding tomatoes and fungi | 0.012 | 0.05 | 27% lower mean; 4% above ML; intake effect not evaluated |
| Oysters | 1.384 | 3 | 22% lower mean; 9% above ML; 1% PTWI intake reduction |
| Molluscs excluding oysters | 0.391 | 1 | 18% lower mean; 6% above ML; 1% PTWI intake reduction |
Additional cadmium occurrence details:
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Countries submitting cadmium raw data | Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, United States |
| Jurisdictions submitting aggregated cadmium data | European Union, Spain, Sweden, Thailand |
| Rice Cd average, Japan samples | 0.061 mg/kg |
| Rice Cd average, other-country samples | 0.017 mg/kg |
| Wheat Cd average | 0.054 mg/kg |
| Vegetable Cd average range | 0.012-0.040 mg/kg |
| Mollusc Cd samples | more than 7,000 |
| Oysters Cd average | 1.38 mg/kg |
| Mussels Cd average | 0.43 mg/kg |
| Other bivalves / cephalopods Cd average | 0.20 mg/kg |
| Japan probabilistic rice-Cd intake estimate | about 1.4 ug/kg bw/week, or 20% of PTWI |
| GEMS/Food rice-Cd intake estimate | 33-34% of PTWI |
Inorganic tin values and conclusions:
| Parameter | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Prior PMTDI for inorganic tin | 2 mg/kg bw/day | Converted at the 33rd meeting into PTWI |
| Prior PTWI for inorganic tin | 14 mg/kg bw/week | Retained here, but committee notes the basis should be reassessed |
| Draft Codex ML discussed, canned beverages | 200 mg/kg | Committee warns reasonably sized portions at this level may produce adverse reactions |
| Draft Codex ML discussed, canned foods other than beverages | 250 mg/kg | Committee says >250 mg/kg in canned foods may produce acute gastric irritation |
| Symptomatic canned-food/beverage incidents | 250-2,000 mg/kg | Human poisoning episodes reported in this concentration range |
| Controlled orange-juice no-symptom tests | 498, 540, and 730 mg/kg | Groups of five volunteers; 1.6-3.6 mg/kg bw dose range |
| Controlled orange-juice symptomatic test | 1,370 mg/kg | All five volunteers symptomatic on first administration; 4.4-6.7 mg/kg bw |
| New tomato-juice spiking threshold | about 150 mg/kg | Concentration-response threshold for acute GI effects; tin(II) chloride at >=161 mg/kg caused disorders |
| Migrated-tin tomato soup test | 201 and 267 mg/kg | No increased adverse effects versus controls in 250 mL portions |
| New occurrence data range | not detected to 300 mg/kg | Data from Australia, France, Lithuania, and United Kingdom |
| Mean long-term dietary intake | <1 to about 14 mg/person/day | For inorganic tin |
| Preliminary short-term intake | 0.004-3.3 mg/kg bw/day | Committee considered these less relevant than product concentration |
Methods (brief)
For cadmium, JECFA used submitted raw concentration distributions where available, aggregated occurrence data where necessary, and GEMS/Food regional diets for intake modelling. The committee recalculated mean commodity concentrations after excluding samples above each candidate maximum level: one level below the proposed Codex ML, the proposed Codex ML, and one level above. It then estimated the impact on commodity-specific mean cadmium intake and expressed reductions as a percentage of the historical PTWI. Rice and molluscs were assessed with extra stratification because rice concentrations differed substantially by region and mollusc concentrations differed by subcategory.
For inorganic tin, JECFA reviewed human poisoning episodes, controlled volunteer studies, a newly available tomato-juice/tomato-soup study, occurrence data from four countries, and intake estimates for canned foods and beverages. The committee deliberately separated inorganic tin from organic tin compounds and concluded that concentration in the food matrix, complexation/adsorption, acidity, storage, and tinplate lacquering are more important for acute GI irritation than total body-weight-normalized intake.
Implications
This report supports cadmium regulatory-context routing for rice, wheat, vegetables, potatoes, and molluscs, but it should not be treated as a new retail occurrence survey. The cadmium table is an impact assessment of candidate Codex MLs using submitted occurrence distributions; values can inform regulatory crosswalks and historical context, not HMTc pooled product percentiles without returning to the underlying occurrence datasets.
The inorganic-tin section is stronger routeable evidence for canned-food and canned-beverage risk logic. It reinforces that inorganic tin is mainly a tinplate-can migration issue, especially in acidic foods and beverages, and that acute irritation is concentration-dependent. Downstream pages should keep this separate from organotins in seafood, plastics, or antifouling contexts.
Wiki pages this source may touch
- cadmium
- tin
- tin-inorganic
- rice
- wheat
- potatoes
- root-vegetables
- leafy-vegetables
- non-root-vegetables
- vegetables
- molluscs
- bivalve-molluscs
- shellfish
- canned-tomatoes
- fruit-juice
- vegetable-juice
- rice-bulk-grain
- root-tuber-vegetables
- leafy-vegetables-other
- non-root-vegetables
- shellfish
- canned-foods-general
- canned-fruit
- canned-vegetables
- canned-fish
- canned-seafood
- canned-tomatoes
- fruit-juices-non-apple
- vegetable-juices-non-root
Verification notes
- Read the full 109-page PDF text, with close checks on the title/citation pages, general data-submission guidance, section 3.2 on cadmium, Table 6, section 3.4 on inorganic tin, and Annex 2 summary entries for cadmium and inorganic tin.
- The PDF uses the micro sign for cadmium intake units; this source page records them as
ugto keep the page ASCII-only. - No DOI is assigned. The official WHO publication page lists this as WHO Technical Report Series 930, ISBN
92-4-120930-5, published 1 January 2006, with 109 pages. - The report’s cadmium PTWI of 7 ug/kg bw/week is historical. It is preserved because it is the reference value used in this 2005/2006 ML-impact calculation, but current cadmium toxicological-reference routing should use the later JECFA 2010 PTMI source.
- The raw canonical file
raw/Manual Fetch Kimi /June 3 Folder/WHO_TRS_930_eng.pdfand duplicate fileraw/Manual Fetch Kimi /June 3 Folder/WHO_TRS_930_eng 2.pdfare byte-identical with SHA-256fb94852b5c3cc476c779d2378cc7610ca6f9e025d483ebb9c14b6b08875cbbb7; the duplicate is recorded in the tracker as duplicate accounting rather than a second source.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. 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.