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Guidance Document on Physical Datura Stramonium Seed Contamination

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Guidance Document on Physical Datura Stramonium Seed Contamination Guidance document on physical Datura stramonium seed contamination Guidance document on physical Datura stramonium seed contamination FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION ROME, 2020 Required citation: FAO and WHO. 2020. Guidance document on physical Datura stramonium seed contamination. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb2105en The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or World Health Organization (WHO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by FAO or WHO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. The views expressed in this information product are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of FAO or WHO. ISBN 978-92-5-133622-9 [FAO] ISBN 978-92-4-001434-3 (electronic version) [WHO] ISBN 978-92-4-001435-0 (print version) [WHO] © FAO and WHO, 2020 Some rights reserved. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo/ legalcode). Under the terms of this licence, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that FAO or WHO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the FAO or WHO logo is not permitted. If the work is adapted, then it must be licensed under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. If a translation of this work is created, it must include the following disclaimer along with the required citation: “This translation was not created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) or WHO. FAO/WHO are not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original English edition shall be the authoritative edition. Disputes arising under the licence that cannot be settled amicably will be resolved by mediation and arbitration as described in Article 8 of the licence except as otherwise provided herein. The applicable mediation rules will be the mediation rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/mediation/rules and any arbitration will be conducted in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Third-party materials. Users wishing to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a third party, such as tables, figures or images, are responsible for determining whether permission is needed for that reuse and for obtaining permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claims resulting from infringement of any third-party-owned component in the work rests solely with the user. Sales, rights and licensing. FAO information products are available on the FAO website (www.fao.org/publications) and can be purchased through [email protected]. Requests for commercial use should be submitted via: www.fao.org/contact-us/licence-request. Queries regarding rights and licensing should be submitted to: [email protected]. Cover photo: ©Shutterstock/Emilio100 Design and layout: Tomaso Lezzi CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................v CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND......................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 3 TROPANE ALKALOID CONTENT OF D. STRAMONIUM SEEDS ....................................... 7 CHAPTER 4 SEED CONTAMINATION LIMITS ...............................................................................11 CHAPTER 5 RECOMMENDATIONS ..............................................................................................15 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................17 ANNEX A ................................................................................................................21 iii TABLES 1. Reported concentrations of TAs in D. stramonium seeds (mg/kg) ............................. 8 2. D. stramonium seed weight ............................................................................................. 8 3. Estimated number of D. stramonium seeds required to reach guidance levels in wheat and soybean .................................................................................................... 15 A1. Uncertainties in the recommendations ........................................................................ 21 FIGURES 1. Datura stramonium plant ................................................................................................. 4 2. Datura stramonium flower .............................................................................................. 5 3. Datura stramonium seed pod and seeds ......................................................................... 5 4. Datura stramonium dimension of seeds ......................................................................... 6 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This document was prepared by Mark Feeley under the technical review of FAO and WHO: Markus Lipp (FAO), Vittorio Fattori (FAO), Keya Mukherjee (FAO) and Kim Petersen (WHO). Gratitude goes to WFP (Virginia Siebenrok, Suvrat Bafna and Davor Janjatovic) for the feedback and insights provided throughout the development of the document. Lastly, appreciation goes to Tomaso Lezzi for the graphic design and layout of the publication. v CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND Following a recent episode of human poisoning attributed to Datura stramonium seeds contaminating cereal products distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), a Joint FAO/WHO expert meeting recommended guidance levels or operational limits for the combined sum of the two main tropane alkaloids (TAs) found in D. stramonium, hyoscyamine and scopolamine (FAO and WHO, 2020). These limits were based on concentrations in ready to consume WFP products but it was recognized that, for screening purposes, it would be beneficial if these limits could be expressed as seed contamination for two of the main cereal/legume ingredients, namely wheat and soybean. Building on the deliberations of the FAO/WHO expert meeting, this document provides specific guidance on physical Datura stramonium seed contamination. 1 CHAPTER 2 INTRODUCTION Datura spp. are herbaceous, leafy, flowering annual plants, approximately two meters in height. The leaves are alternate, 10–20 cm long and 5–18 cm wide (Fig. 1). The flowers are erect or spreading, trumpet shaped, 5–20 cm long and 4–12 cm wide at the opening, with colours varying from white to yellow, pink and pale purple (Fig. 2). The fruit is a spiny capsule 4–10 cm long and 2–6 cm wide, initially green coloured but becoming dull brown at maturity, splitting open into four chambers when ripe to release 1 300–30 000 seeds per plant. The seeds are almost dark brown to black, flat, kidney-shaped, surface irregular and pitted, 3–4 mm long, 2-3 mm wide (Fig. 3) (Weaver and Warwick, 1984). Datura is thought to have originated in Central America and has the following taxonomic tree: Kingdom: Plantae – Plants Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons Subclass: Asteridae Order: Solanales Family: Solanaceae – Potato family Genus: Datura While Datura species have been deliberately cultivated for ornamental, traditional medicine, and pharmacological purposes, they are considered to be invasive/noxious weeds. Datura species can compete with food crops and cause economic losses, while all parts of the plants can contain high amounts of anticholinergic substances referred to as tropane alkaloids (TAs). TAs are nitrogenous secondary plant metabolites and occur naturally in plants. TAs can cause a variety of adverse effects related to their anticholinergic properties and may be fatal if ingested by humans and other animals, including livestock and pets. Recent reviews of the pharmacological 3 GUIDANCE DOCUMENT ON PHYSICAL DATURA STRAMONIUM SEED CONTAMINATION and toxicological properties of TAs are available from EFSA (2013) and FAO and WHO (2020). There have been numerous reports of human poisonings, including mortalities, due to the accidental and/or deliberate ingestion of Datura plant parts (Fuchs et al., 2011; EFSA, 2013; Adamse et al., 2014; Chan, 2017; Fatur and Kreft, 2020; Kerchner and Farkas, 2020). While crops grown for human consumption do not naturally contain TAs, bulk commercial grains and seeds, such as wheat, rye, soybean, linseed, and maize, may be contaminated by TAs due to agricultural practices (EFSA, 2008; Adamse and van Egmond, 2010). Of the 15–25 Datura species estimated to exist, D. stramonium L. is considered to be one of the world’s most widespread weeds. D. stramonium is extensively distributed in temperate and tropical areas and
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