Scientific Opinion on Exploring options for providing advice about possible human health risks based on the concept of Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC)

Synthetic and naturally occurring substances present in food and feed, together with their possible breakdown or reaction products, represent a large number of substances, many of which require risk assessment. EFSA's Scientific Committee was requested to evaluate the threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) approach as a tool for providing scientific advice about possible human health risks from low level exposures, its applicability to EFSA's work, and to advise on any additional data that might be needed to strengthen the underlying basis of the TTC approach. The Scientific Committee examined the published literature on the TTC approach, undertook its own analyses and commissioned an in silico investigation of the databases underpinning the TTC approach. The Scientific Committee concluded that the TTC approach can be recommended as a useful screening tool either for priority setting or for deciding whether exposure to a substance is so low that the probability of adverse health effects is low and that no further data are necessary. The following human exposure threshold values are sufficiently conservative to be used in EFSA's work; 0.15 mu g/person per day for substances with a structural alert for genotoxicity, 18 mu g/person per day for organophosphate and carbamate substances with anti-cholinesterase activity, 90 mu g/person per day for Cramer Class III and Cramer Class II substances, and 1800 mu g/person per day for Cramer Class I substances, but for application to all groups in the population, these values should be expressed in terms of body weight, i. e. 0.0025, 0.3, 1.5 and 30 mu g/kg body weight per day, respectively. Use of the TTC approach for infants under the age of 6 months, with immature metabolic and excretory systems, should be considered on a case-by-case basis. The Committee defined a number of exclusion categories of substances for which the TTC approach would not be used. (C) European Food Safety Authority, 2012