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Contaminants & Pesticides
Posted By:
Trace One
On October 14, 2020, the European Food Safety Authority’s scientific opinions panel Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) has launched consultation to update "The Risk Assessment of Hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDDs) in food".
The scope of the document presents an estimation of the human dietary exposure to HBCDDs, and an assessment of the human health risks related to this very dietary exposure.
- Main targets for toxicity are neurodevelopment, the liver, thyroid hormone homeostasis and the reproductive and immune systems.
- HBCDDs are not genotoxic and the available evidence indicates that they are not carcinogens.
- Based on effects on spontaneous behavior in mice, the Panel identified a LOAEL of 0.9 mg/kg body weight(bw) as the Reference Point, corresponding to a body burden of 0.75 mg/kg bw.
- In humans, the same body burden was calculated to be 2.35 µg/kg bw per day.
- The margin of exposure (MOE) approach was applied to assess possible health concerns.
- Most important contributors to the chronic dietary LB exposure to HBCDDs were found to be fish meat, eggs, livestock meat and poultry.
- An exception are breastfed infants with high milk consumption, for which the lowest MOE values may raise a health concern.
The Scientific opinions panel concluded results based on MOE values supports current dietary exposure to HBCDDs across European countries does not raise a health concern.
The draft is open for comments until November 25, 2020.
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