Topics
risk assessment
March 13, 2025
Food Packaging Forum (FPF) scientists submit comments to FDA’s public consultation; urge for comprehensive safety assessment using a hazard-based approach, systematic testing frameworks on groups of chemicals, and increasing transparency during all evaluation stages; call for clear separation between risk assessment and risk management; provide scientific resources
Reading time: 3 minutes
January 10, 2025
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selects five chemicals to undergo risk evaluation under the Toxic Substance Control Act - four are used in food contact; announces the next five chemicals to start this prioritization process which might eventually lead to risk evaluation and seeks comments on their usage and hazards by March 18, 2025
Reading time: 1 minute
November 27, 2024
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a list of priority deliverables of the Human Foods Program (HFP) for the 2025 fiscal year; includes updates to pre-market review and post-market assessment processes; also includes plans to update chemical grouping methodologies and modernizing data monitoring of new chemicals
Reading time: 1 minute
September 13, 2023
Study performs migration testing on 79 plastic baby food pouches; finds four bisphenols, five phthalic acid diesters in targeted analysis and 26 more in suspect screening including 23 non-intentionally added substances (NIAS); NIAS adipic acid - diethylene glycol exceeds the threshold of toxicological concern in 40% of the pouches
Reading time: 2 minutes
July 21, 2023
Scientist outlines why chemical persistence makes an update of chemical technology and traditional chemical risk assessment necessary; uses per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as an example while clarifying that innovation needs to go beyond PFAS
Reading time: 2 minutes
July 17, 2023
Scientists develop nonlinear model for predicting food contact chemical (FCC) migration and apply it to FCCs of high toxicological concern; emphasize usefulness of their model to speed up migration assessment of FCCs; different group of scientists proposes an innovative modeling approach to assess release of a specific additives and elements from plastic food packaging and steel processing tools
Reading time: 4 minutes
May 24, 2023
Scientists investigate available research on hazard and exposure of 34 oligomers in PET for food contact; 74% of them found to migrate; only 38% have been tested for their safety using computer models, while only one was tested for safety in organisms; authors call for further research and better risk assessment
Reading time: 2 minutes
May 8, 2023
Technical report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) informs about “chemical-related issues of plastic pollution and options to address them”; finds 13,000 chemicals present in plastic; 7,000 have hazard data of which 3,200 are chemicals of concern; outlines chemical groups, use sectors of concern, human and ecosystem exposure, gaps and improvement options including substitution and waste management in a circular economy
Reading time: 3 minutes
May 2, 2023
Researchers report plastic fragments may exacerbate breast cancer metastasis; review summarizes nanoplastic uptake into human cells; studies find occupational microplastics exposure can be reduced by wearing face masks; millions of micro- and nanoplastics are released during 30-second food blending; scientists more worried about microplastic impacts on the environment than humans
Reading time: 6 minutes
April 20, 2023
Targeted analysis demonstrates widespread contamination of Chinese baby foods with traditional and novel antioxidants; plastic food packaging identified as one source; prevalent and high migration of 2,4-di-tert-butylphenol from different types of plastics
Reading time: 4 minutes
