Background
The 17th Session of the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods (CCCF 17) agreed to request the JECFA Secretariat to issue a call for data for lead in spices, dried bark, including a note not to submit data that could be related to economic adulteration and for dried culinary herbs.
We are therefore requesting submission of new or additional data as follows:
- Data on occurrence of lead in spices, dried bark, and dried culinary herbs for the last 10 years, and country of origin (if known) should be indicated in the remarks field in order to help assess the geographic representativity of the data;
- Data that could be related to economic adulteration should be excluded from the submission.
Data should be submitted as indicated below. The call for data can also be viewed online at https://covid.comesa.int/teams/nutrition-and-food-safety/standards-and-scientific-advice-on-food-and-nutrition or https://www.fao.org/food-safety/scientific-advice/calls-for-data-and-experts-expert-rosters/en/.
Date for submission
The submission of data is requested before
31 October 2024
This deadline applies to all data to be submitted
WHO will be compiling data for the JECFA Secretariat.
All new data must be uploaded in the GEMS database, which is easily accessible on the web.
To access the GEMS database, go to https://extranet.who.int/gemsfood/. To submit data, you will need an account, and instructions on creating an account found on the website.
For technical questions about submitting data to GEMS, please contact Dr Luc Ingenbleek at WHO (ingenbleekl@who.int).
Please make sure that you read the “GEMS/Food Database Manual” before attempting to submit data to GEMS.
When submitting data to the GEMS/Food database for this work, please:
- Provide complete information on the LOQ and LOD of analytical methods;
- Complete information for identification of the samples (serial number);
- Provide information in the “Local Food Identifier” or “WHO food identifier” fields of the database to allow more specific identification of samples, e.g., dried or fresh;
- Results analysed on dry weight basis should be converted on “as is” basis considering the humidity of the product.