The United States Food and Drugs Administration (US FDA) has issued new guidance limiting lead concentrations in all processed foods intended for babies and children less than two years old, rekindling the debate on a need to reduce children’s exposure to heavy metals.
However, guidelines in India continue to allow about 10 times the higher limit (compared to the US) for lead in packaged food for babies between 6-24 months, and authorities indicate there is no move to revisit them at least in near future.
The new guidelines issued by the US FDA on January 24, as part of its Close to Zero (for heavy metal in food) policy, though not binding in nature, say that lead concentrations should now be limited to 10 parts per billion in fruits, vegetables and meats packaged in baby food jars, pouches, tubs and boxes. The target is 20 parts per billion for dry cereals.
The agency estimates that these lower levels could result in a 24 to 27 percent reduction in exposure to lead, resulting in "long-term, meaningful and sustainable reductions in the exposure to this contaminant from these foods”.
In India, though the food classification system is different, the permissible limit for lead is 200 parts per billion for infant milk substitutes and infant foods, which can, to an extent, be compared with dry cereal meant for kids under 2 years of age.
Need to limit exposure to lead
Experts say that it’s not always possible to remove all traces of heavy metals, such as lead, arsenic, cadmium and copper, from the food supply, because they are found throughout the environment and can be absorbed by plants.
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The primary sources of heavy metals in the soil, environment and agriculture are atmospheric deposition, livestock manure, irrigation with wastewater or polluted water, metallo-pesticides or herbicides and phosphate-based fertilisers.
“So traces are found in vegetables, fruits and grains that are used to make baby food and also in food that is prepared at home,” said a researcher who studies food safety.
But as toxic metal exposure can be harmful to developing brains, food safety regulators fix the permissible limit so that the harm is kept at the minimum possible level. Several research studies have shown that contamination adversely affects mental growth, causing neurological and cardiovascular diseases in humans, especially children.
Some analyses have even also shown that certain heavy metals, especially lead and cadmium, have carcinogenic effects, apart from leading to bone fractures and mal-formation, cardiovascular complications, kidney dysfunction, hypertension, and other serious diseases of the liver, lung, nervous system and immune system.
Dr Chandrasekhar Singha, senior consultant in the paediatric critical care unit at Madhukar Rainbow Children's Hospital in the national capital, underlined that small children are particularly vulnerable to food contamination because of their smaller body size and metabolism.
Lead concentration limit in India
The Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), under the Food Safety and Standards (contaminants, toxins and residues) regulations, 2011, specifies the limits of various heavy metals across food categories. For lead, the permissible limit of contamination is in the range of 10-5,000 parts per billion.
The norms also say that the maximum contamination of lead allowed in infant formula can be 10 parts per billion while it can be 20 parts per billion in the case of infant milk substitute and infant food.
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In May 2015, a major controversy had broken out when FDA representatives from Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh reported detecting excessively high levels of lead and monosodium glutamate in a popular brand of instant noodles, Maggi.
These findings led to multiple market withdrawals and investigations in India and beyond. The parent company, Nestle, was made to pay a hefty fine to the government for the food safety violations while it also faced bans in several states before returning to store shelves.
Is a comparison between India and US standards valid?
FSSAI chief executive G Kamla Vardhana Rao has not responded to a specific query on whether there is any plan to revisit norms related to permissible limits of lead in baby food in India, but insiders in the agency say that it is on the immediate agenda.
Some nutrition activists, however, pointed out that while it may be useful to study what developed countries are doing to further check the exposure to heavy metals through food, equally worrying is that the packaged food items are not tested frequently and in a transparent manner for violations, even in the context of existing limits.
“There are very few instances, for example, of food items being recalled from the market because of contamination and that is because we do not test enough,” said Dr Arun Gupta, central coordinator of the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India, and convenor, Nutrition Advocacy for Public Interest.
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