Brussels, 09/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has opened a public consultation, to run until 7 October, on a scientific opinion it is preparing on chemicals in materials that come into contact with food.
Revisiting the estimation of consumer exposure to chemical substances, re-evaluated in the light of the latest scientific and regulatory data, is a key component of this draft opinion on “Recent developments in the risk assessment of chemicals in food and their potential impact on the safety assessment of substances used in food contact materials”. Current guidelines for this kind of assessment date from 2001.
Under the terms of Regulation 1935/2004, substances used in the plastics that come into contact with food must be assessed by EFSA for their genotoxicity before they can be authorised, even though migration leads to low human exposure. In this draft opinion, EFSA experts propose two thresholds of human exposure (1.5 and 80 micrograms per kg of body weight per day) which would trigger the requirement for additional toxicity data. The experts believe that greater attention should now be devoted to finished materials to identify and assess the safety of migrating substances. This opinion will form the basis for a discussion among risk managers, that is to say, the Commission and the competent authorities in the member states. (Aminata Niang)