A note on cadmium levels in human livers in New Zealand.

Sixty-five samples of human livers of New Zealanders have been analysed for cadmium. The purposes of this survey were: to see if there is any significant exposure of the population to cadmium, to compare New Zealand human tissue levels of cadmium with those in other countries, and to see if there are any regional differences within New zealand. The twenty livers analysed from Southland had a mean cadmium level of 2.0 mg/kg whereas the mean of all the other livers analysed was 1.2 mg/kg. A student t-test on the data showed that there was clearly a significant difference between these two results. However, these levels are not high compared to the results of similar studies overseas.