On October 25, 2016, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced a public consultation on its new project, MixTox.

The EFSA, together with several collaborating institutions, has already worked on various projects related to chemical mixtures, including the assessment of the combined toxicity of pesticides or the toxicity of compounds with multiple sources of exposure (e.g. dietary and non-dietary), but also the development of novel modeling tools for mixture toxicity. The new project, MixTox, was initiated in 2016 by setting up a working group to develop guidance aiming to harmonize the methodologies for risk assessment of chemical mixtures.

EFSA’s focus is on establishing practical frameworks and methodologies for risk assessment of mixtures. Achieving this ambitious goal will require several years of collaborative work involving scientific bodies and regulatory authorities in Europe and beyond. Therefore, EFSA invites all interested stakeholders from science and civil society to support and contribute to defining the scope of the MixTox project, as well as propose methods that can be used for understanding the “cocktail effects” and carrying out risk assessment of mixtures of multiple chemicals coming from a variety of sources, or suggest collaboration possibilities.

The deadline to respond to this public consultation is November 30, 2016.

Read more

EFSA (October 25, 2016). “Chemical mixtures: help us define ‘MixTox’ before work starts.”

EurActiv (November 2, 2016). “EFSA launches public consultation into ‘cocktail effects’ of chemicals.

Reference

EFSA (October 25, 2016). “Public consultation on the terms of reference of the Scientific Committee Working Group on ‘Harmonisation of risk assessment methodologies for human health and ecological risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemicals’.”

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