Children, pica behavior

According to US-EPA (1997), data on soil ingestion rates for children who deliberately ingest soil (pica) are limited however, it does not appear to be a very common behavior. This conclusion is based on the seven key smdies used by US-EPA to estimate the daily soil intake in children, where only a single child, out of more than 600 examined, exhibited pica behavior directed toward sod. The results for this child are shown in Table 7.5. 

For pica behavior, an ingestion rate of 10 g/day is considered by US-EPA as a reasonable value for use in acute exposure assessments, based on the available information. It should be noted, however, that this value is based on only one pica child observed in the Calabrese et al. (1989 - cited in US-EPA 1997) study, see Table 7.5. 

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