Evaluating adverse effects of environmental agents in food: a brief critique of the US FDA's criteria.
Environ Health
; 22(1): 38, 2023 04 21.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37085808
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) is charged with protecting the safety of food from both pathogens and chemicals used in food production and food packaging. To protect the public in a transparent manner, the FDA needs to have an operational definition of what it considers to be an "adverse effect" so that it can take action against harmful agents. The FDA has recently published two statements where, for the first time, it defines the characteristics of an adverse effect that it uses to interpret toxicity studies.OBJECTIVE:
In this brief review, we examine two recent actions by the FDA, a proposed rule regarding a color additive used in vegetarian burgers and a decision not to recall fish with high levels of scombrotoxin. We evaluated the FDA's description of the criteria used to determine which outcomes should be considered adverse. OVERVIEW We describe three reasons why the FDA's criteria for "adverse effects" is not public health protective. These include an unscientific requirement for a monotonic dose response, which conflates hazard assessment and dose response assessment while also ignoring evidence for non-linear and non-monotonic effects for many environmental agents; a requirement that the effect be observed in both sexes, which fails to acknowledge the many sex- and gender-specific effects on physiology, disease incidence and severity, and anatomy; and a requirement that the effects are irreversible, which does not acknowledge the role of exposure timing or appreciate transgenerational effects that have been demonstrated for environmental chemicals.CONCLUSIONS:
The FDA's criteria for identifying adverse effects are inadequate because they are not science-based. Addressing this is important, because the acknowledgement of adverse effects is central to regulatory decisions and the protection of public health.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Contexto em Saúde:
3_ND
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Inocuidade dos Alimentos
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
País/Região como assunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Environ Health
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article