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
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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

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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
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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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Surface Water
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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
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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.

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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
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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)

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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.

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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.