Codex, jointly run by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, said it would develop a code of practice that will help countries comply with arsenic standard and to provide producers with good agricultural and manufacturing techniques to prevent and reduce contamination. Codex standards provide food safety benchmarks for international trade and often are the basis for national regulations.
In tests of 1,300 samples of rice and rice products, “FDA scientists have determined that the levels of inorganic arsenic found in the samples are too low to cause immediate health damage,” the agency said last fall. Average levels of inorganic arsenic, the more toxic type, were 0.1 to 7.2 micrograms of inorganic arsenic per serving. FDA is conducting a risk assessment for rice and hopes to release it later this year..
For a FDA question-and-answer page on arsenic in rice, updated in May, click here. For the FDA main page on arsenic in rice, click here.