Food chemical risk assessment

The aim of food chemical risk assessment is to provide advice to risk managers on the likely levels of risk associated with given levels of exposure to chemicals via food. In this chapter it is presented as a stepwise procedure, although in practice risk assessment rarely follows such formal lines (Figure 2.1). There is much to be said, however, for separating out the components of risk assessment. This increases clarity, enhances objectivity and improves the overall credibility of the assessment. One important principle is that the two main strands, hazard characterization and exposure assessment, should be isolated from each other and their outputs not brought together until the risk characterization step. This will raise objectivity by preventing the exposure analyst’s judgement from becoming clouded by knowledge of the acceptable or tolerable intake and keeping the toxicologist’s judgement free from knowledge of likely intakes.