The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published a paper describing research and innovation needs to support regulatory science and advance risk assessment, including understanding the gut microbiome, improving aggregate chemical exposure science, ensuring allergenicity assessments for novel proteins are fit-for-purpose, and other areas.
In a first-of-its-kind study analyzing large population-level datasets, researchers from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine estimated that communities exposed to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) -contaminated drinking water experience up to 33 percent higher incidence of certain cancers.
The Food Packaging Forum’s open access Database on Migrating and Extractable Food Contact Chemicals (FCCmigex) has been updated to include the most recent science on thousands of food contact chemicals to which humans are exposed. FCCmigex supports scientific and regulatory efforts to improve food contact material safety.
A survey of Swedish toddlers conducted by the Swedish Food Agency as part of the Riksmaten Young Children dietary study has found high levels of some toxic substances—such as PFAS, BPA, and lead—in the children’s bodies.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has compiled a report on the exposure of humans and food-producing animals to endocrine-disrupting chemicals—such as PFAS, BPA, and phthalates, among others—between 2004 and 2024.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has released two new resource documents: a new compilation of the Food Standards Code, and a guidance document on how the agency conducts dietary exposure assessments.
To understand the full extent of human exposure to all food contact chemicals, the Food Packaging Forum has created the FCChumon Database, which documents for the first time hundreds of chemicals found in humans, and which of those are hazardous or have unknown toxicity.
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) new Food Enzyme Intake Model (FEIM) web tool helps the food industry and consumers estimate dietary exposure to specific food enzymes per manufacturing processes.
An expert report commissioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) weighed the nutritional benefits of seafood consumption against the health risk of dietary exposure to contaminants in seafood, with special consideration to childhood growth and development.
As the EU is considering a ban on bisphenol A (BPA) and its analogues in food packaging based on the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) recent lowering of its tolerable daily intake (TDI) for the chemical, an international group of academic experts has penned their support for EFSA’s nontraditional risk assessment behind the new BPA TDI, and call on other regulatory agencies around the globe to modernize their risk assessment approaches of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
