On June 6, 2018, the European Commission’s (EC) Joint Research Centre (JRC) published a policy brief entitled “Something from nothing? Ensuring the safety of chemical mixtures.

The document refers to “a cocktail of chemicals from different sources” and acknowledges that “combined exposure to multiple chemicals can lead to health/environmental effects even if single substances in the mixture do not exceed safe levels.” Further, JRC points out that “assessment and management of mixtures is only partly covered by current legislation, which focuses on single substances in isolated sectors,” and that “many knowledge gaps need to be filled.” One data gap that JRC sees concerns the “real co-exposure patterns,” which so far are “mostly unknown.”

Currently, JRC is “performing research on the use of alternative (non-animal) methods and new strategies to assess the combination effects of chemicals.” Its research includes, for example, “exploring links between mixtures and diseases, interaction effects of chemicals, as well as the use of biomonitoring data in exposure assessment.”

Read more

JRC (June 8, 2018). “Something from nothing? Ensuring the safety of chemical mixtures.” JRC Science for Policy Brief (pdf)

Chemical Watch (June 13, 2018). “EU JRC issues policy brief on the safety of mixtures.

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