IAFNS connects and collaborates with FDA, USDA, and other stakeholder – catalyzing science that matters - to reduce and mitigate heavy metals (toxic elements) in foods and ingredients.

Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic can accumulate in the environment as they naturally occur and may also result from human activities. This complicates the reduction of heavy metal concentration in food and beverages as these metals—sometimes called toxic elements—can enter the food supply from soil, water and air, among other sources.

IAFNS collaborated with the FDA/University of Maryland Joint Institute on Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN) to develop an interactive, web-based Metal Dietary Exposure Screening Tool. The tool can rapidly evaluate potential health risks associated with heavy metals in foods and ingredients. The metal screening tool combines Federal reference values for the toxicity of several metals with updated dietary background levels. You can read the full publication here.

With input from FDA, USDA, and other stakeholders, IAFNS is launching a new research initiative focused on the reduction of heavy metal concentrations in foods and beverages in support of FDA’s ‘Closer to Zero’ campaign. These research projects, awarded to public institutions, seek to establish a framework for identifying and prioritizing critical heavy metal/food/ingredient combinations for targeted reductions. The outcome will identify feasible and workable mitigation practices to reduce the occurrence of heavy metals in foods and ingredients. This work will leverage both a thorough analysis of agricultural practices and supply chains, and exposure trends via diet analysis.

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And explore the work of IAFNS' Food and Chemical Safety Committee.