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Saturday, February 15, 2003
RP nixes 0.2 ppm fish lead content
By Jessica B. Natad
THE country is opposing a proposal pending before the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants (CCfac) to set the maximum level of lead content in fish at 0.2 parts per million (ppm)
According to a document furnished Sun.Star by the Seaweed Industry Association of the Philippines (Siap), the Philippines will be sending an official delegation to the 35th CCFac session on March 17-21 in Arusha, Tanzania to transmit the country’s position on the proposal.
Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo Jr. said the proposed maximum level of lead content in fish should not be approved because the presence of lead in fish does not pose a significant risk to public health, nor does it present an expected problem in trade.
There is also no internationally validated method for lead analysis in fish at 0.2 ppm.
“Continuing the establishment of a maximum level for lead in fish at 0.2 ppm is contrary to Codex principles on the establishment of an ML for contaminants in foods…,” Lorenzo said in a letter to Codex secretariat David Byron last Jan. 23.
The Codex principle states that the maximum level should be set only for those contaminants that present both a significant risk to public health and known or expected problems in trade. It is also a Codex principle that maximum levels should not be lower than a level that can be analyzed using methods that can be readily applied in normal product control laboratories, the document said.
The CCFac is one of the committees of the Codex, the working group created by the Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization to develop food standards and guidelines.
(February 15, 2003 issue)
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