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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Toxicol.
Sec. Regulatory Toxicology
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/ftox.2024.1440331
This article is part of the Research Topic Emerging topics on chemical safety assessment View all 5 articles

Potential mammary carcinogens used in food contact articles: Implications for policy, enforcement, and prevention

Provisionally accepted
Lindsey Parkinson Lindsey Parkinson *Birgit Geueke Birgit Geueke Jane Muncke Jane Muncke
  • Food Packaging Forum Foundation (FPF), Zürich, Switzerland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Many nations have food contact material (FCM) legislation purporting to protect citizens from hazardous chemicals, often specifically by regulating genotoxic carcinogens. Despite such regulations, cancers that are associated with harmful chemical exposures are highly prevalent, especially breast cancer. Using the novel Key Characteristics of Toxicants framework, Kay et al. (2024) found 921 substances that are potential mammary carcinogens. By comparing Kay et al.'s chemicals list with our own Database on migrating and extractable food contact chemicals (FCCmigex), we found that 189 (21%) of the potential mammary carcinogens have been measured in FCMs. When limiting these results to migration studies published in 2020-2022, 76 potential mammary carcinogens have been detected to migrate from FCMs sold in markets across the globe, under realistic conditions of use. This implies that chronic exposure of the entire population to potential mammary carcinogens from FCMs is the norm and highlights an important, but currently underappreciated opportunity for prevention.Reducing population-wide exposure to potential mammary carcinogens can be achieved by science-based policy amendments addressing the assessment and management of food contact chemicals.

    Keywords: Food Packaging, Food contact chemicals, breast cancer, HAZARD ASSESSMENT, Chemical Safety, regulation

    Received: 29 May 2024; Accepted: 27 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Parkinson, Geueke and Muncke. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Lindsey Parkinson, Food Packaging Forum Foundation (FPF), Zürich, Switzerland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.