Update of the risk assessment of inorganic arsenic in food
EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM), Dieter Schrenk, Margherita Bignami, Laurent Bodin, James Kevin Chipman, Jesús del Mazo, Bettina Grasl‐Kraupp, Christer Högstrand, L.A.P. Hoogenboom, Jean‐Charles Leblanc, Carlo Nebbia, Elsa Nielsen, Evangelia Ntzani, Annette Petersen, Salomon Sand, Christiane Vleminckx, Heather Wallace, Lars Barregård, Diane Benford, Karin Bröberg, Eugenia Dogliotti, Tony Fletcher, Lars Rylander, José Cortiñas Abrahantes, José Ángel Gómez Ruiz, Hans Steinkellner, Tuuli Tauriainen, Tanja Schwerdtle
Abstract
) of 0.06 μg iAs/kg bw per day obtained from a study on skin cancer as a Reference Point (RP). Inorganic As is a genotoxic carcinogen with additional epigenetic effects and the CONTAM Panel applied a margin of exposure (MOE) approach for the risk characterisation. In adults, the MOEs are low (range between 2 and 0.4 for mean consumers and between 0.9 and 0.2 at the 95th percentile exposure, respectively) and as such raise a health concern despite the uncertainties.