Risk Assessment of Chemicals in Food of Animal Origin: Studies in Market Basket of the Canary Islands, Spain

Risk analysis represents the most useful scientific approach for making food safety decisions. One of the three pillars of risk analysis is risk assessment, and market basket studies allow for the evaluation of exposures to hazardous elements present in food and characterizing the risk they represent, as well as identifying the most vulnerable subgroups of consumers and recommendations for consumption. As foodstuffs from animal origin are the most relevant source of the environmentally persistent toxic pollutants, during the last years we have performed monitoring studies of all the main animal origin foodstuffs that are consumed in our region (the Canary Islands, Spain). By combining these data of chemical contamination of food with those of consumption of food we have assessed the exposure of an average consumer, and identified the major risks that this exposure represents. Here we present the summary of the results obtained in these studies, which indicate that the dietary exposure to these contaminants can be considered from medium to high, in particular as it refers to dioxins, whose consumption would widely exceed the EU’s tolerable daily intake of 2 pg/kg bw/day. The results of our studies may be useful for risk managers in the design of appropriate risk communication campaigns aimed to reduce the consumption of certain types of foods to protect the consumer’s health. *Corresponding author: Octavio Pérez Luzardo, Toxicology Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences, Research Institute of Biomedical and Health Sciences (IUIBS), Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Plaza Dr. Pasteur s/n, 35016 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, Tel: +34 928 451 424; E-mail: [email protected] Citation: Luzardo, O.P., et. al. Risk Assessment of Chemicals in Food of Animal Origin: Studies in Market Basket of the Canary Islands, Spain. (2016) J Environ Health Sci 2(3): 14. Risk Assessment of Chemicals in Food of Animal Origin: Studies in Market Basket of the Canary Islands, Spain Octavio P. Luzardo1,2*, Luis D. Boada1,2 Received date: July 21, 2016 Accepted date: August 19, 2016 Published date: August 26, 2016 DOI: 10.15436/2378-6841.16.1026 safety decisions (Lee, et al., 2015). Risk assessment is a key step in this process and in turn comprises four elements: hazard identification; hazard characterization; the exposure assessment; and risk characterization (FAO, 2005). Typically, this assessment is approached in stages, selecting in each of them certain priority hazards based on their previous experimental characterization, and also selecting certain individual foods that may contain these hazards (Lee, et al., 2015). The family of chemicals known as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) brings together a comprehensive list of chemicals that represent very widely recognized hazard to consumers for its proven toxicity and common presence in food, par-