EC Directorate-General Health and Consumer Protection: Assessment of the dietary exposure to arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury of the population of the EU Member States
Description
1.1 Summary Data on occurrence, consumption and intake calculations for the mean adult population were submitted by BE, DK, FI, FR, DE, HE, IR, IT, NL, NO, PT, SE and UK. Several factors have an impact on the validity of the intake estimation. The most important is probably the limited amount of occurrence data, which in many countries left several food groups empty. DK and UK had sufficient data for a complete intake assessment. Other confounding factors are differences in analytical quality and different choices of age groups for the intake estimations. The results therefore have to be viewed with caution. The occurrence levels of Cd, Pb and Hg in foodstuffs, for which maximum limits (ML) have been established in Commission Regulation 466/2001, are generally well below the MLs.
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