CREMe Food Safety News
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September 2006 - Vol 1, Issue 2
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Greetings,

Hello and welcome back to our newsletter to all of you who are interested in food and chemical safety, exposure assessment and collaboration.

In this issue we have articles for you in the area of food safety along with a new case study from the cosmetics industry. If you have any comments or questions for us or any suggestions for future articles, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Last month, in our "In an Ideal World" article, we discussed why it is not an ideal world for exposure assessment and food safety analysts.

We noted why it is not feasible or even possible to have a complete food consumption data set which records every single ingredient or chemical. It is especially not possible to have an up-to-date one, since food consumption habits and compositions are changing constantly and food surveys are carried out infrequently due to the cost and time required to perform them.

Fortunately, all is not lost. Effective food safety assessment tools can combine the separate data sets which do exist in a meaningful way to allow accurate estimation of exposure to the population of the chemicals of interest. These assessments are based on the latest available information regarding market shares of brands, pesticide residue levels from routine screening programmes, additive concentrations, changes in the legal framework, and other relevant information sources.
What exactly is in your food's packaging? Migrants from food contact materials, often referred to as indirect food additives, have been shown to be present at low concentrations in food. As these migrants are hazards, their presence in food needs to be regulated. The new EU super directive aims to regulate all substances that may migrate from the food contact material into the food. These include all impurities, degradation products and aids to polymerisation that may be present in the finished food contact material.

However, it must be noted that not all hazards are risks. A substance may have harmful effects at certain doses but if it is not consumed at that dose it will never be a risk. "All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison, but the right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy." Paracelsus c. 1400. 1400.
For a short diversion from food this month, we will look at a case study of exposure assessment of the European population to seven cosmetics products.

This innovative study was carried out by CREMe under the sponsorship of the European Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association (Colipa) and at the request of the European Commission's Scientific Committee for Consumer Products (SCCP). The aim of the study was to update the Committee's current "Notes of guidance for the testing of cosmetic ingredients and their safety evaluation".

CREMe provides health and wellness by enabling regulators, safety authorities, food, personal care product and chemical manufacturers to easily and accurately evaluate exposure levels of consumers to chemicals.

CREMe's state-of-the-art safety system: CREMe Food Safety uses on-demand high performance computing to allow analysts to easily and accurately estimate exposure to food additives and flavourings, contaminants, pesticide residues, nutrients and many other ingredients of concern including cosmetics and personal care products. CREMe has a team of experts who provide training and consultancy services in the area. Please feel free to contact us for more information on any of the above.

Yours Sincerely,
Cronan McNamara
CREMe Software Ltd.

phone: +353 1 896 8451