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Emerging Food Contaminants

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Title: Emerging Food Contaminants


1
Emerging Food Contaminants
  • John Gilbert
  • CSL Science Director
  • (j.gilbert_at_csl.gov.uk)
  • York (UK)
  • DIFSC - Dubai
  • February 25th 2009

2
Outline of Talk
  • Background
  • General approach to anticipating emerging risks
  • Recent contaminants e.g. PFOS
  • Emerging contaminants
  •  
  • EU projects focussing on emerging risks
  •  
  • Conclusions

3
Recent Food Scares
  • Economic drivers
  • prions (BSE mad cow) in beef
  • dioxins in animal feed (2008 Ireland)
  • Deliberate adulteration
  • melamine in pet food and baby food
  • sudan dye in spices

4
Recent food scares
  • Technology changes
  • E-coli (0157) in spinach salad (USA)
  • Failure to observe regulations
  • nitrofurans in shrimps
  • chloramphenicol in honey
  •  
  • Improved analytical techniques
  • acrylamide and furan in cooked foods
  • 2- isopropyl thioxanthone (ITX) in food packaging
  • Bisphenol-A-diglycidyl-ether (BADGE) in can
    coatings

5
Rapid Alert System of Food Feed (RASFF)
Taken from EFSA- (RASFF)
6
Rapid alerts for foodstuffs imported into EU and
failing food safety checks (1990-2005)
Asia 1590
Europe 981
Latin America 237 Africa 226
Northern America 85 Oceania 31
7
General approach to anticipating emerging risks
  • The changing world
  • Changing global production and trading
  • Climate change
  •  
  • Human contributions
  • Environment
  • Deliberate adulteration (economic fraud)
  •  
  • National priorities
  • Research programmes
  • New technologies in food and agriculture
  •  
  • Alert systems emerging risk projects

8
Environmental Contaminants
  • PCDDs (75), PCDFs (135) and PCBs (209)
  • Polybrominated flame retardants
  • PAHs
  • Challenges - scientific
  • ppt sensitivity
  • congener specificity (TEQs)
  • Challenges business drivers
  • reduce cost automated clean-up
  • increase throughput CALUX screen (receptor
    assay)

9
EFSA Opinion on PFOS PFOA
The EFSA Journal (2008) 653, 1-131
Perflurooctane sulfonate (PFOS),
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and
salts   Scientific Opinion of the Panel on
Contaminants in the Food Chain    (Question no
EFSA-Q-2004-163)    Adopted on 21 February 2008
10
PFOS, PFOA and their salts
  • Chemical types
  • Neutral and anionic surface-active fluorinated
    compounds with high thermal, chemical and
    biological inertness includes PFOS and PFOA.
  •  
  • Properties
  • Hydrophobic and lipophobic so do not
  • accumulate in fatty tissue.
  •  
  • Applications
  • Fabric and carpet coatings, coatings for paper
    products, fire-fighting foams, mining and oil
    well surfactants, floor polishes, insecticide
    formulations.

11
Levels of N-ethyl perfluoroctane sulphonamide in
fast foods (Tittlemier et al., 2003)
12
Estimates of exposure to PFOS (ng/person/day)
(EFSA 2008)
ng/kg bw per day (60 kg bw)
TDI 150 ng/kg bw per day
13
Emerging contaminants
  • veterinary medicines
  • human pharmaceuticals
  • personal care products
  • nanoparticles
  • other POPs
  • non-synthetics
  • transformation products

14
The Concern
  • Detection of environmental contaminants in water,
    soil and biota
  • Environmental behaviour may be different from
    traditional substances (properties, entry into
    the environment)
  • Biologically active molecules and potential
    subtle impacts
  • Little known about the impacts
  • Some contaminants may move from low risk to high
    risk due to e.g. land-use changes, influence of
    change in climate.
  • Boxall (2204) EMBO Reports Boxall et al, (2004
    and 2003) Environ. Sci Technol.

15
The Challenges
  • Large and diverse group of chemicals
  • New Analytical methods required
  • Behaviour different from traditional
    contaminants
  • Subtle effects
  • Limited data availability
  • Need to assess effects of land-use change,
    climate change etc.

16
Prioritising emerging contaminants
  • 1000s of environmental contaminants in the
    environment
  • Development of risk-based priority setting
    schemes
  • Consideration of human and environmental impacts
  • Application to veterinary medicines,
    pharmaceuticals and transformation products

17
US Geological Survey Monitoring
  • 51 Midwestern stream sites
  • DA 230 to 26,936 km2
  • 3 runoff samples per site
  • - Late spring (May - June)
  • - Summer (June - July)
  • - Harvest (Sept - Nov)
  • Analysed for 21 herbicides, 27 degradates, 36
    antibiotics
  • Most sites sampled in previous studies

18
Surface Water
19
NORMAN Project http//www.norman-network.net
NORMAN project Network of reference laboratories
for monitoring emerging environmental pollutants
6th Framework Programme, Priority 6.3 Global
Change and Ecosystems EMERGING SUBSTANCES MOST
FREQUENTLY DISCUSSED
  • Algal toxins
  • Antifoaming agents
  • Antioxidants
  • Antifouling compounds
  • Bio-terrorism/sabotage agents
  • Detergents
  • Disinfection by-products (drinking water)
  • Flame retardants
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Anticorrosives
  • Fragrances
  • Gasoline additives
  • Industrial chemicals
  • Nanoparticles
  • Perfluoroalkylated substances
  • Personal care products
  • Pesticides
  • Plasticizers
  • Biocides
  • Trace metals
  • Wood preservatives

20
Potential impacts on risks of chemicals and
pathogens from agriculture
  • Temperatures will increase, winters will be
    wetter, summers drier and there will be an
    increase in intense rain events
  • Changes are likely to affect the prevalence of
    disease and the usage of chemicals
  • Changes in soil characteristics and hydrology
  • Climatic changes likely to affect fate and
    transport of pathogens and chemicals
  • Risks could be very different from today

21
Linking to new analytical methods
22
Milestone in Emerging Risks
23
EFSA Emerging Risks Unit (EMRISK)
  • EMRISK unit is responsible for establishing
    procedures to systematically collect up-to-date
    information and data in order to identify and
    analyse emerging risks in the field of food and
    feed safety. This includes
  • Defining priority indicators for the
    identification of emerging risks
  • Developing procedures for collecting and
    evaluating data to identify emerging risks
  • Identifying key sources and best practices in
    Member States and internationally to collect and
    update relevant data.

24
EMRISK approach scheme
WG 2 (chair N. Tomlinson)
Search engines
Influential sector
Indicative question
Indicator
Information sources
Scientific experts
WG 1 (chair H. Noteborn)
Signal
Proactive Alert
Action
24
25
FSA work on emerging risks
  • Working with Canadian Public Health Agency and
    EFSA to develop a global food safety alert system
  • Play active role in EFSA Scientific Cooperation
    Group on Emerging Risks and WHO INFOSAN
  • Through Safefoodera (FP6 ERA NET project) set
    up research platform on emerging risks
  • Horizon Scanning by Scientific Advisory Committee
    on Nutrition
  • Use of Sigma Scan (www.sigmascan.org), Delta Scan
    (www.deltascan.org) and Government Horizon
    scanning (www.sciencehorizons.org.uk)

26
EU FP6 project Go-Global www.goglobalnetwork
.eu
  • Global Platform on Emerging Risks in the Food and
    Feed
  • To create a sustainable global platform - sharing
    results, stimulating dissemination, setting
    research agenda on emerging food safety risks.
  • To develop a global implementation and
    harmonisation strategy for evaluation of research
    and related activities.
  • To identify shortcomings in current food safety
    systems regarding the identification of emerging
    risks.
  • To develop a strategic research agenda, and
    initiate joint research activities.
  • To stimulate global exchange of information and
    dissemination of emerging food safety issues.

27
Conclusions
  • We only have knowledge of potential exposure to
    a small proportion chemical contaminants in food.
  • A range of drivers could increase/change exposure
    in the future.
  • New contaminants are increasingly being found
    albeit at low levels.
  • Toxicology continues to struggle to make a risk
    assessment of low-level exposure.
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