Luisella Gilardi , and Lidia Fubini
Documentation Service for Health Promotion, Regione Piemonte, Via Sabaudia 164, 10095 Grugliasco, Torino, Italy
Abstract
This report provides a brief overview of several reliable Internet resources concerning food toxicology. Some helpful Internet resources have been identified on the basis of quality criteria, of their relevance and the languages availability.
The report includes four topic areas, the first provides a brief description of international resources, the second focuses on European resources, the third provides a description of some national resources and the last is a short overview of some databanks available on web.
Keywords: World Wide Web; Food toxicology; Internet; Environmental contaminants
1. Introduction
Food does contain naturally, intentionally or unintentionally a wide range of substances which are either desired like nutrients, dietary fibres or undesired such as natural toxins, pesticides residues, mycotoxins, animal drugs or other potential contaminants derived from manufacture, storage or transportation.
The availability of reliable information on toxicity and danger of chemical contaminants in foodstuffs could facilitate the process of risk assessment for foods.
Data and information from food toxicology research studies provided by international and research organizations are increasing and are accessible from the internet.
Since the internet has no formal peer-review process, much of the information available may be unreliable, incorrect or misleading. The European Community prepared a list of quality criteria to assure the reliability of a web resource. (http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/ehealth/doc/communication_acte_it_fin.pdf).
This paper identifies several internet resources that relate to the broad topic of food toxicology, defined as the study of the potential effects of chemicals found on foods destined for human consumption. It is not intended to be a comprehensive review but rather a sampling of available materials considered by the authors to represent useful and reliable food toxicology resources. Readers must also be aware of the transitory nature of information in the Internet; reviewed sites could quickly became obsolete.
2. Criteria for inclusion
We searched food toxicology resources using “google” as search engine. The Search strategy used the terms “food safety”. Internet resources were identified based upon relevance/utility, authority of providers; accuracy of the content, accessibility and internal search engine, updating of information. Databases were selected on the basis of authors experience, number of compounds included, relevance and updating of information. This report comprises four sections, the first provides a brief description of international organizations, the second focuses on European organizations, the third provides a description of some national organizations and the last is a short overview of some databases available on web.
3. Results
3.1. International organizations
The most authoritative research organization in this field is WHO—Food Safety Department (http://www.who.int/foodsafety/en/). The site includes the section on chemical risk, which contains publications prepared under the Global Environment Monitoring System—Food Contamination Monitoring and Assessment Programme (GEMS/Food). The aim of GEMS/Food was to estimate the levels and trends of contaminants in food, their contribution to total human exposure, and significance with regard to public health and trade. Links to Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) (http://www.who.int/ipcs/food/jecfa/en/) and Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) (http://www.who.int/ipcs/food/jmpr/en/) are provided.
The JECFA is an international expert scientific committee. It has been meeting since 1956, initially to evaluate the safety of food additives. Its work now also includes the evaluation of contaminants, naturally occurring toxicants and residues of veterinary drugs in food. The Committee has also developed principles for the safety assessment of chemicals in food. The site contains the database (http://jecfa.ilsi.org/search.cfm) in which are reported the summary of evaluations performed by the JECFA from 1956 to 2003. It covers more than 1500 food additives, approximately 40 contaminants and naturally occurring toxicants, and residues of approximately 90 veterinary drugs. JECFA serves as a scientific advisory body to the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
The Commission (http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp) was created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards and guidelines. Links to the two databases “Pesticides Residues in Food” and “Veterinary Drug Residues in Food” are provided.
The International Programme on Chemical Safety (http://www.who.int/ipcs/en) established in 1980, is a joint programme of three Cooperating Organizations—ILO, UNEP and WHO, implementing activities related to chemical safety. The site includes a section on “chemical in food”. Of particular value are the chemical reviews on acrylamide and semicarbazide and the recent publication prepared under the project implemented by FAO and WHO to update the principles and methods for the assessment of chemicals in food.
Finally, from the International Agency for Cancer Research website (http://www.iarc.fr), it is possible to reach the following resources (from “Cancer Databases” link):
? IARC Monographs Database on Carcinogenic Risks to Humans;
? IARC Cancer Epidemiology Database;
? IARC p53 Database;
? EPIC—European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition;
? Genetic Epidemiology Database.
The IARC Monographs series publishes authoritative independent assessments by international experts of the carcinogenic risks posed to humans by a variety of agents, mixtures and exposures. Since its inception in 1972, the series reviewed more than 895 agents.
3.2. European organizations
The European Community devoted some effort and resources to food safety topic.
We mention the section of “European Union” website, that refers the summaries of legislation about food safety (http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/it/s80000.htm). It includes the summaries of European legislation about contaminants and environmental factors (radiation, chemical agents such as pcb, dioxins, furans, extractions solvents, fertilisers and pesticides), contamination due to contact with foodstuffs and to genetically modified organisms.The European Commission established in 1974 the Scientific Committee on Food (http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/scf/index_en.html), with the mandate to answer to Scientific and technical questions concerning consumer health and food safety associated with the consumption of food products. The Scientific Committee on Food website collects the scientific opinions of the Committee which are summarized in reports from 1974 to 1997. The opinions of the Scientific Committee on Food adopted after 1997 can be found under the section ‘Outcome of discussions’. The Committee was transferred to European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in May 2003 (http://efsa.eu.int/).
EFSA was legally born from the European Parliament and Council regulation (EC) No. 178/2002 of 28 January 2002. EFSA provides independent scientific advice on existing and emerging risks in the area of food safety. The scientific reports prepared since 2002 are available on website and are focused on opinion adopted by the expert panel on the request of the Commission.
The European Community funded the Project—Food Safety in Europe (FOSIE): Risk Assessment of Chemical in Food and Diet (http://www.ilsi.org/europe/fosie/index.html). The aim is to provide a measure of consensus of the ways in which Risk Assessment should be conducted in various situations and of the research needed to improve the process. The document will focus on principles and guidelines. The site contains six critical review papers that have been prepared in the fields of hazard identification, hazard characterisation and exposure assessment. Each paper addresses, for the various food categories, current methods, reliability and limitations, identification of knowledge gaps and research needs.
The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) provides documentation on veterinary medicines. From the site is possible to achieve the summary reports of toxicological evaluations and the values of maximum residue limit (MRL) for veterinary drug in food performed by EMEA (http://www.emea.eu.int/htms/vet/mrls/a-zmrl.htm).
A site dedicated to the description of toxicological properties of mycotoxins is the European Mycotoxins Awareness Network (EMAN) (http://www.mycotoxin.org). The EMAN is a multidisciplinary group of 14 organisations, with expertise in the field of mycotoxins. The aim of the network is to provide quality scientific information and news about mycotoxins. Of particular value the plenty and the updating of information.
3.3. National organizations
In U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has primary responsibility for the regulation of food additives and pesticides residue in food. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration—Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/) has a comprehensive website. It includes the section “Pesticides and Chemical Contaminants” where the “Annual Reports from FDA‘s Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program” can be found; data are available since 1993. Of particular interest are the report about some chemical contaminants (lead, mercury, acrylamide, pcb, dioxin, ethyl carbammate, furan, perchlorate, radionuclides) and natural toxins. A section has been devoted to discuss results and to provide raw residue data for the total diet study, which is conducted annually as a market basket survey to estimate potential dietary exposure to pesticides.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the responsibility for pesticide regulation.
The section devoted to pesticides (http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/index.htm) covers all the aspects of pesticide regulation and education. Of particular worth the section “Health and safety”, in which it is possible to achieve EPA‘s human health risk assessments for many pesticides. Some educational documents addressed to consumer and kids are available.
The “Food Safety Risk Analysis Clearinghouse” (http://www.foodrisk.org/) was developed by the Joint Institute for Food safety and Applied Nutrition, a collaboration between the University of Maryland (UM) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The site contains information about the risk analysis process; it collects and catalogue a comprehensive list of web resources about this topic.
In U.K., the website of Food Standard Agency (http://www.food.gov.uk/) covers some interesting topic in the field of food safety, it include specific section related to pesticides, acrylamide, sudan dyes, additives, packaging and irradiated food. Each section provides some basic information about the topic and the Agency‘s role minimising consumer exposure.
In Italy, the Ministry of Health is the organization that has the responsibility for food quality and hygiene. The Food Safety section (http://www.ministerosalute.it/alimenti/sicurezza/sicurezza.jsp) comprises the current legislation about this topic.
The Italian National Health Institute (http://www.iss.it) conducts scientific research and provides control and advisory service in the field of public health. The interesting area for our purpose are “quality and risk in food” and “food and animal health”. Currently, only the first area is on-line, it includes publications on additives and dyes, inorganic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, quality indicators, mycotoxins, nitrosoamines, acrylamide and other contaminants, veterinary drugs residues.
3.4. Databases
The last section is a brief review of some database useful in the risk assessment process.
The databases included are described below:
? CODEX ALIMENTARIUS: pesticide residues in food (http://faostat.fao.org/faostat/pestdes/jsp/pest_q-e.jsp). This database contains Codex maximum residue limits for pesticides and extraneous maximum residue limits adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. It is a pesticide residue/commodity matrix. It is possible to submit the query by selecting pesticides or commodities.
? CODEX ALIMENTARIUS: veterinary drug residues in food (http://faostat.fao.org/faostat/vetdrugs/jsp/vetd_q-e.jsp). This database contains maximum residue limits for veterinary drugs (MRLVDs) adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. It is a veterinary drug residue/commodity matrix. It is possible to submit the query by selecting veterinary drug, species or tissue.
? EXTOXNET—The EXtension TOXicology NETwork (http://extoxnet.orst.edu/ghindex.html). The Network was developed by toxicologists from some U.S. Universities.
Of particular value the database pesticide information profiles (PIPs). Pesticide information profiles are documents which provide specific pesticide information relating to health and environmental effects. The following information are provided: (i) general information; (ii) toxicology and ecological effects; (iii) environmental fate; (iv) physical properties; (v) exposure guidelines; (vi) regulatory status.
? Fiches toxicologiques (http://www.inrs.fr/) is developed by the Institute National de Recerche e de Securite (INRS). It includes more than 250 data sheets, that report a summary of health and safety information about specific chemical agents or groups of chemicals. The database is available only in French.
? JMPR—monographs and evaluations (http://www.inchem.org/pages/jmpr.html). It includes Toxicological evaluations of about 230 pesticides, produced by the WHO/FAO Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues JMPR.
? PESTIDOC (http://www.icps.it/) developed by International Centre for Pesticides and Health Risk Prevention. The database is free, but to gain access users have to be registered; it collects information about pesticides. The following specific information is provided:
chemical–physical characteristics;
toxicological and ecotoxicological characteristics;
environmental fate;
permitted use on crops;
pre-harvesting intervals;
maximum residues limits (MRL);
plant protection products (PPP) authorized in Italy and labels;
pesticide producers
protocols for health surveillance and for monitoring of exposure to pesticides (biological, environmental);
scientific literature.
Information on active substances derives from the International bibliography, from pesticide-related websites as well as from the Italian and EU legislation. As for commercial products, published data come from the Official Journal of the Italian Republic. Pestidoc is a regularly updated database. Therefore, some parts are still under construction and are not accessible to the users. The Italian and English Version are available.
? PESTICIDE DATA SHEET (http://www.inchem.org/pages/pds.html):
Contain basic information for safe use of pesticides. The Pesticide Data Sheets are prepared by WHO in collaboration with FAO and give basic toxicological information on individual pesticides. Priority for issue of PDSs is given to substances having a wide use in public health programmes and/or in agriculture, or having a high or an unusual toxicity record. The data sheets are prepared by scientific experts and peer reviewed. The following information is provided: (i) general information; (ii) toxicology and risks; (iii) recommendation for regulatory authorities; (iv) prevention of poisoning in humans and emergency aid; (v) recommendation for medical and laboratory personnel.
? Summary of evaluations performed by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA1956-2003) (http://jecfa.ilsi.org/search.cfm)
It collects the summary of evaluations performed by JEFCA; it covers more than 1500 food additives, 40 contaminants and 90 veterinary drugs. The summary includes the following information: (i) chemical name; (ii) synonyms; (ii) functional class; (iii) latest evaluation; (iv) acceptable daily intake (ADI); (v) comments; (vi) previous status; (vii) reference. Search terms include functional class, chemical name and synonyms.
The report and monographs are available from JEFCA database (http://www.inchem.org/pages/jecfa.html).
? TOXNET—Toxicology and Environmental Health (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/):
It is a cluster of databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, and related areas developed by the National Library of Medicine.
We selected the following:
HSDB: Hazardous Substances Data Bank. It include more than 4500 chemical, biological and physical compounds. Data are periodically updated and peer-reviewed.
TOXline: Reference database. It include an extensive array of references to literature on biochemical, pharmacological, physiological, and toxicological effects of drugs and other chemicals.
DART-ETIC: Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology and Environmental Teratology Information Center. It contains current and older literature on developmental and reproductive toxicology.
A list of internet resources reviewed is provided in Table 1.
Table 1. Complete list of internet resources and their web address
4. Conclusion
This paper attempted to review some useful internet resources available in the field of food toxicology. Some problems were encountered due to the difficulty of finding information up to date, and databases with reliable internal search engine.
Nevertheless, the existence of such internet resources provide consumers, legislators, researchers with valuable tools that are easily and inexpensively accessible.