WHO - Food Additive Series 24: ARSENIC
Description
Arsenic was previously evaluated in the tenth and twenty-seventh reports of The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (Annex 1, references 13 and 62). It was concluded at the twenty-seventh meeting that "on the basis of the data available, the Committee could arrive at only an estimate of 0.002 mg/kg bw asa provisional maximum tolerable daily intake for ingested arsenic; no figure could be arrived at for organic arsenicals in food" (Annex 1, reference 62). Specifically, the monograph (Annex 1, reference 63) stated that there was a need for information on:
1) arsenic accumulation in man exposed to various forms of arsenic in the diet and drinking water;
2) the identification, absorption, elimination and toxicity of arsenic compounds in food with particular reference to arsenic in fish;
3) the contribution of arsenic in fish to man's body burden of arsenic;
4) epidemiological studies on populations exposed to elevated intakes of arsenic of known speciation.
Very limited data addressing the above four points were made available to the Committee. The studies relevant to assessing the significance of organoarsenicals in fish are presented.
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