Europe’s food safety watchdog has published risks that it sees arising from the migration of the substance 4-methylbenzophenone from packaging into certain breakfast cereals.
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Following a request from the European Commission, the European Food Safety Authority published a statement on the risks today (4 March).
Riitta Maijala, EFSA’s director of risk assessment, said: “Although the migration of
4-methylbenzophenone from packaging into foods is not desirable, only in the highest exposure scenario considered – regular consumption of products contaminated at the highest levels reported so far – could some children possibly be at risk.”
Neverthless, Maijala acknowledged further study into the issue was needed. “There are important limitations in our knowledge and understanding of 4-methylbenzophenone and further data and analysis would be needed to be able to fully assess its safety,” Maijala said.
Based on the limited exposure data available and applying knowledge on the toxicity of a similar substance, benzophenone, EFSA concluded that short-term consumption of contaminated breakfast cereals should not pose a risk to most people.
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By GlobalDataHowever, if the contamination of food through the use of 4-methylbenzophenone in printing inks for food packaging were to continue, more data would be needed in order to carry out a full risk assessment.
Due to the lack of data available, EFSA was not able to fully assess consumer exposure to 4-methylbenzophenone or its toxicological effects in humans.
However, given its chemical structure and toxicity studies on benzophenone, EFSA concluded that 4-methylbenzophenone is likely to be a carcinogen but should not raise concerns with regard to genotoxicity.
