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What threshold (if any) governs inorganic arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury in baby food across the United States, the European Union, and California — and, just as importantly, where no governing threshold exists at all. A number alone doesn’t tell you whether it is enforceable; this page makes the legal force behind each number explicit.
This is governance status, not safety advice. This page describes what regulatory bodies have (and have not) set as a governing threshold, and whether that threshold is legally binding. It is not a statement that any specific food is safe or unsafe, and it is not medical, dietary, or professional advice. For guidance on infant feeding, consult a pediatrician or a qualified nutrition professional. See the full Disclaimer.
Governance isn’t static. The cards below are forward-looking: a value or requirement that has been proposed, drafted, or scheduled but is not yet in force, as of today. Each card names its status, how confident that change is, and the instrument it comes from. A Proposed change is under consideration, not a scheduled fact — it is never presented as the governing limit. An Adopted change is law that has passed but is not yet effective — distinct from a proposal.
The cells below are higher-signal than a populated number: each one is a place where no governing limit exists at all for this analyte/matrix/jurisdiction combination, as of the dates shown.
The heavy-metals analyte × matrix × jurisdiction cells, grouped by analyte
(the additional tracked substances — PFAS, BPA, DEHP, NDMA — appear in the
change calendar above).
Legal force is shown as a badge — Binding maximum
and Non-binding guidance can carry an
identical number with very different enforceability.
Disclosure mandate (California AB-899)
is a different governance type entirely — a lab-testing and public-disclosure
requirement, not a maximum level; threshold_ppb is expected to be
empty for those rows. Draft marks a value
that has not been confirmed finalized.
| Jurisdiction | Matrix | Threshold | Legal force | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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This matrix is built from the same structured dataset served by the
ALETHEIA API’s
paid /api/regulatory-status endpoint
— the full queryable, filterable, multi-jurisdiction layer (including future
expansion to other contaminants and jurisdictions) lives there. This page is a
curated, finite public showcase regenerated at deploy time from that same
corpus; it does not call the live API from your browser.
Every cell traces to the issuing instrument. Where an instrument has been independently archived (the European Union and California entries), the citation links to that archived snapshot. United States entries cite FDA guidance and Federal Register documents by name and date; an archived snapshot for those is a known gap, tracked for a future pass — the citation text itself is not a clickable link until that archival work lands.
Not a regulatory authority. This page references the regulatory record; it does not set, displace, or speak for any agency’s position. Where FDA, the European Commission, or the California Legislature publishes a primary document, that document is authoritative — this page is a reference convenience, not a primary citation. For jurisdictional or interpretation questions, contact the agency directly; see the Agency Directory for state and federal regulator contact paths.