IARC MONOGRAPHS ON THE EVALUATION OF CARCINOGENIC ...

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(c) Impact of establishing maximum limits on estimate of intake
Data from the EU, China and the USA were used to assess the potential impact of
successfully eliminating aflatoxin levels above 20 μg/kg versus 15 μg/kg versus
10 μg/kg versus no limit for maize and peanuts (JECFA, 1998). The reader is referred to
the full report for the tables, which more fully describe these four scenarios. JECFA
emphasized that the aflatoxin levels presented in this report were not considered to be
representative of the food supply in any country or of the commodities moving in international
trade. The lack of representative data severely limited the ability to make quantitative
estimates of aflatoxin intake; in general, the results were considered to be biased
upwards. The data did provide, as JECFA stated, sufficient information to evaluate the
likely impact of limiting aflatoxin levels in foodstuffs. Of the scenarios considered, the
greatest relative impact on estimated average aflatoxin levels was achieved by limiting
aflatoxin contamination to less than 20 μg/kg, i.e., eliminating all samples above
20 μg/kg from the food supply. Only small incremental reductions could be achieved by
limiting aflatoxin levels to no more than 15 or 10 μg/kg.
1.4.2 JECFA 2001
IARC MONOGRAPHS VOLUME 82
In February 2001, at the request of the Codex Committee on Food Additives and
Contaminants (Codex Alimentarius, 2000), JECFA (2001) evaluated the human health
risks associated with consumption of milk contaminated with aflatoxin M 1 at two maximum
regulatory levels of 0.05 μg/kg and 0.5 μg/kg. This project involved estimating
exposure to aflatoxin M 1 in consumers from countries all over the world consuming milk
and milk products.
Data on aflatoxin M 1 contamination of milk and/or milk products were submitted
from Argentina, Canada, the Dubai Municipality of the United Arab Emirates, the EU,
Indonesia, Korea (Republic of), Norway, the Philippines, Thailand and the USA. The
majority of samples were submitted from the USA and the European Commission; very
few were from south-east Asia and none from Africa. Of 6181 samples submitted from
the USA and collected in south-western and southern states between 1998 and 2000,
1392 had aflatoxin M 1 levels between 0.05 and 0.5 μg/kg, and 113 had levels
> 0.5 μg/kg. However, no samples were available from the north-eastern USA, where
aflatoxin rarely occurs; most samples came from south-eastern parts where aflatoxin
contamination often occurs in maize and peanuts consumed by dairy cows.
The data submitted by the European Commission represented 7573 samples from
Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden
and the United Kingdom collected in 1999; 96% of the samples had aflatoxin M 1 levels
below the limit of detection (which varied between countries: 0.001–0.03 μg/kg). The
concentration in samples where aflatoxin M 1 was detected were ≤ 0.05 μg/kg (JECFA,
2001).