The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has reduced the safe level of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in the diet based on new scientific evidence. TFA is a breakdown product of some pesticides.
The European Commission and EU Member States will take the new levels into account when they discuss measures to ensure consumers remain protected.
What is TFA?
Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is a chemical coming from multiple sources that can form when per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances break down, including from certain active substances in pesticides. As a result, TFA can end up in groundwater, soil and food crops.
EU Member States are required to monitor PFAS levels in drinking water, while other monitoring programmes track PFAS levels in food.
What has changed?
EFSA’s experts lowered the acceptable daily intake (ADI) to 0.014 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight per day, down from the previous value of 0.05. The new ADIThe acceptable daily intake (ADI) is an estimate of the amount of a substance in food or drinking water that can be consumed daily over a lifetime without presenting an appreciable risk to health. It is usually expressed as milligrams of the substance per kilogram of body weight and applies to chemical substances such as food additives, pesticide residues and veterinary drugs is about 3.5 times lower than the previous one. They also set a new acute reference dose of 0.07 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
These updated values are based on new evidence, which showed, among other effects, that TFA changes levels of thyroxine – a hormone produced by the thyroid gland that plays an important role in regulating the body.
What evidence was used?
EFSA issued a call for data that ran from 6 August to 7 October 2024. The information we looked at includes:
- data from EU country assessments of PESTICIDESubstance used to kill or control pests, including disease-carrying organisms and undesirable insects, animals and plants products that can form TFA
- previous EFSA assessments of active substances in pesticides that can form TFA
- studies considered by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) as part of classification proposals industry data
EFSA worked closely with experts from EU countries, academia and other organisations, and invited them to contribute throughout the process, including in our working group. We received 177 comments in response to our public consultation, all of which were considered in our final report.
We also identified areas for further research including the potential of TFA for long-term TOXICITYThe potential of a substance to cause harm to a living organism and CARCINOGENICITYCancer-causing property of a substance when an animal or human is exposed to it and developmental IMMUNOTOXICITYAny adverse effect on the immune system (e.g. allergy or inflammation) that results from exposure to toxic substances. An additional UNCERTAINTYScientific concept used in risk assessment to describe all types of limitations in available knowledge at the time an assessment is conducted, with the agreed resources, that affect the probability of possible outcomes to the assessment factor was introduced in the calculation of the ADI to account for these uncertainties.
How does this relate to other EU work on TFA?
EFSA’s work is part of wider EU efforts to assess and manage PFAS substances, in cooperation with other bodies such as ECHA.
Together with ECHA, we are currently examining how PFAS pesticides break down into TFA, and its fate and behaviour in soil and water, which we expect to be completed by next summer.
O artigo foi publicado originalmente em EFSA.
