Risk Assessment

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In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we speak to exposure scientist and toxicologist Dr. Alex LeBeau about the generation, interpretation, and responsible communication of food contaminant testing data—a conversation raised by recent reports on arsenic in candy from Florida officials.

This article discusses toxicology and human exposure to pesticide residues in foods, including policy context and risk communication recommendations.

Dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (DL-PCBs) are environmental contaminants generated as byproducts of industrial processes and waste incineration. EFSA’s risk assessment resulted in a lower tolerable weekly intake, which Europeans generally exceed.

The knowledge paper, titled, “The Future of Food Safety,” was developed in partnership with a top FAO food safety official and written by a former Codex Chair.

Ahead of World Food Safety Day, FAO and WHO have introduced a Food Safety Roadmap Development Tool and an online learning course on Codex-aligned risk assessments, supporting competent authorities and other stakeholders seeking to utilize science and data to improve national food safety systems.

Drawing from EFSA risk assessments, OpenFoodTox provides structured summaries of hazard information for thousands of individual substances, including food additives and flavorings, pesticides, contaminants, and food contact materials.

The findings, based on a novel approach and published in Nature Health, suggest that traditional chemical safety assessments may overlook combined exposures and real-life environmental conditions. Transcriptomic analysis implicated a non-genotoxic mode of action by which pesticides interfere with normal cell function and identity processes.

None of the exposures to the five additives and flavorings assessed presented a health concern for the EU population. The pilot helped identify shortcomings in the monitoring framework that will be rectified for future reports.

This episode of Food Safety Five discusses new academic publications exploring the limitations of a “zero-risk” approach to food safety and evaluating the limited benefits and trade-offs associated with intensified microbiological sampling.

This article discusses how the overlooked sub-group of middle management plays a large part in determining culture, execution, and risk performance.