On December 17, 2021, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a guidance document outlining methodologies for applying scientific criteria to group chemicals for human health risk assessments that are considering combined exposures to multiple chemicals. This final guidance was published following a public consultation on an earlier draft in May 2021 (FPF reported), and EFSA has recently also published a separate report detailing the outcomes of the consultation. The final guidance proposes a framework “to apply hazard-driven criteria for grouping of chemicals into assessment groups” preferably based on “mechanistic information on toxicity” and using a weight-of-evidence approach. When mechanistic data is missing, it suggests grouping chemicals could instead be based on a common adverse outcome and considering toxicokinetic data, especially when “common toxicologically relevant metabolites are shared.” The guidance further discusses prioritization methods as well as case studies to “illustrate the practical application of hazard-driven criteria and the use of prioritization methods for grouping of chemicals in assessment groups.”
EFSA explains that this guidance document is part of its effort to pragmatically group chemicals from across the food system, such as food contact chemicals, plant protection products, or food contaminants, in order to do assessments of chemical mixtures on human health. This new guidance document follows-up on the procedures outlined in EFSA’s MixTox framework released in 2019 (FPF reported).
References
EFSA (December 17, 2021). “Guidance Document on Scientific criteria for grouping chemicals into assessment groups for human risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemicals.”
EFSA (December 17, 2021). “Outcome of the public consultation on the draft EFSA ‘Guidance Document on Scientific criteria for grouping chemicals into assessment groups for human risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemicals’.”
