EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, has released OpenFoodTox, the database on the risks of the main chemicals found in food, to the public.
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerousToxic substances in food: EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, has made public OpenFoodTox, the database on the risks of main chemicals found in food. The information relates to the dangers to human health, animal health and the environment. But the question of the glyphosate.
It is a database which will be updated annually and which gives access to information from more than 1650 EFSA scientific papers on toxicity of chemicals present in the food and feed chain.
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An editorial published in the EFSA Journal describes how to use it by providing indications on over 4 thousand chemicals, on the European reference legislation, on the EFSA scientific act which indicates the critical effects and on the safety levels established by the scientific panels of the Agency, such as the tolerable daily dose or the admissible dose.
Jean-Lou Dorne, the toxicologist who led the development of OpenFoodTox, explains that the database allows quick and easy access to the most important information and provides in summary form the toxicological information used by EFSA for its risk assessments since 2002 . “And it took over five years to compile. We are now ready to share this wealth of data with the world in an accessible way ”.
It is a valuable source of information especially for scientific advisory bodies and other bodies with an interest in chemical risk assessment, but, they say, is easy to consult even by those interested in knowing the risks that could be hidden in food. It is accessed through EFSA's Scientific Data Warehouse.
"In the database - they explain - there are all those substances belonging to the various areas in which EFSA has the task of carrying out chemical risk assessment: pesticides, food additives, flavorings and food sources, both natural and artificial feed additives and contaminants. Thus it not only contains information on health effects critical for human risk assessment - such as toxicity to the liver or mammary gland - but also for farm animals, domestic animals and ecologically important species such as bees and fish".
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What about glyphosate? As we know, a very important debate is on about the most widely used herbicide in the world both in the agricultural sector and at the domestic level. If the IARC, a body that belongs to the WHO, has included it among the substances probably carcinogenic to humans, EFSA denied the danger.
Even in this new database, glyphosate would play the part of the harmless.
Germana Carillo
