Informe del Comité Científico de la Agencia Española de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutrición (AESAN) en relación con una cuestión presentada por la Presidencia de la AESAN relativa a la evaluación del riesgo asociado a la presencia de aceites minerales en aceite de girasol procedentes de Ucrania
[EN]: In response to the European Commission’s issuing of a food alert in relation to the contamination of crude sunflower oil with mineral oil exported from Ukraine, the European Union action protocol was initiated to ensure that all the contaminated products were removed from the food chain. Along...
| Autores: | , , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2008 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) |
| Repositorio: | DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:digital.csic.es:10261/245874 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/245874 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Sunflower oil Mineral oil Hydrocarbons Aceite de girasol Aceite mineral Hidrocarburos |
| Sumario: | [EN]: In response to the European Commission’s issuing of a food alert in relation to the contamination of crude sunflower oil with mineral oil exported from Ukraine, the European Union action protocol was initiated to ensure that all the contaminated products were removed from the food chain. Alongside the risk management measures set up to prevent the public’s exposure to this contaminant, the Spanish Food Safety and Nutrition Agency (AESAN) requested that the Scientific Committee conduct an evaluation of the risks associated with the presence of mineral oils in the sunflower oil that had been exported from Ukraine. The analysed results show that the contamination was mainly due to high viscosity mineral oil, as is described by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in its preliminary report. This however does not preclude, in the case of new analytical information coming to light that specifies with more detail the components of the contaminating mineral oil, the possibility of revising the original evaluation and issuing an additional report that would include more reliable figures according to the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of each possible component. The Scientific Committee concludes that: • The majority of the preliminary evaluations of the mineral oils in question that have been carried out up to now, are based on the premise that the mineral oil is of high viscosity and that, therefore, the risk for the public is low. This is because the consumption of contaminating mineral oil is compared with the highest possible ADI value for the different types of hydrocarbons considered. • It is however necessary to continue with the analytical work and conduct a more detailed assessment, as was pointed out by EFSA, of the profile of the hydrocarbons that were present in the contaminated sunflower oil. This will help rule out the need to apply a more restrictive ADI in the assessment. • The evaluation carried out by the AESAN’s Scientific Committee considered both the direct consumption of sunflower oil as well the indirect consumption through other sources such as margarine, sauces and fish that is conserved in a large amount of oil. The worst-case scenario was considered: that all food is made using the contaminated sunflower oil from Ukraine; that the consumer is an extreme consumer, consuming all the affected products; and that the content of contaminating mineral oil in the sunflower oil was the highest found in the Spanish market (2300 ppm for refined sunflower oil, according to the figures provided by the AESAN). Even so, the estimated consumption would equal 20% of the ADI for adults and 25% of the ADI for children. In the worst-case scenario (4060 ppm), with the same conditions mentioned above, the consumption would equal roughly 33% of the ADI for adults and 50% of the ADI for children. On the other hand, the different risk analyses all reached the same conclusion: that the consumption of these levels of high viscosity mineral oil does not pose a severe toxic risk. Nonetheless, the presence of the detected levels of contamination in some samples suggests an erosion of the level of protection that the established ADI values entail. In other words, if such contamination were to continue in time, and as a consequence the consumption of the contaminating mineral oil (through sunflower oil or other products that include this type of vegetable oil) was to continue as well, and if the consumption of small quantities of such mineral oil (which on their own would not be harmful) was to increase due to other food sources that had not been assessed, the risk of chronic toxicity could exceed the acceptable safety margins |
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