Nearly 200 cancer-causing chemicals may be leaking into U.S. consumers’ food

Scientists are calling for stricter regulation on how food is processed, packaged and cooked after a study found that materials used in the food industry may be exposing the general population to 189 cancer-causing chemicals.

“This study is important because it shows that there is a huge opportunity to prevent human exposure to chemicals that cause breast cancer,” said Jane Muncke, co-author and CEO of the Food Packaging Forum (FPF), Switzerland, in a statement.

This study focused on breast carcinogens, which are chemicals thought to increase the risk of breast cancer.

In the United States, regulations against these chemicals have existed since 1958, but a 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Food and Drug Administration should do more to regulate substances that come into contact with food and to evaluate the safety of materials used in processing and packaging.

Despite current laws, this FPF study found that chronic exposure to breast carcinogens is the global norm, as these chemicals transfer from the materials used to package and process products, into the foods themselves.

“The potential for cancer prevention by reducing hazardous chemicals in your daily life is underexplored and deserves much more attention,” Muncke said.

To make this discovery, the scientists used a list of 921 substances identified by scientists at the Silent Spring Institute in Massachusetts as potentially breast carcinogenic.

They compared this information with a database created by the FPF – called FCCmigex – on chemicals that could be transferred from materials used in the food industry to food.

“Identifying the presence of these hazardous chemicals in food contact materials was made possible by our FCCmigex database,” lead author Lindsey Parkinson, data scientist and science writer at FPF, said in a statement.

“This resource brings together valuable information from thousands of published scientific studies on chemicals in food contact materials in one easily searchable location.”

The study authors found that 189 potential breast carcinogens that can leach into foods were detected in materials commonly used in food processing and packaging: 21 percent of the Silent Spring Institute’s total list.

Of these chemicals, 143 could come from plastic and 89 from paper or cardboard: 76 and 47 percent respectively.

The scientists then narrowed their search further, looking only at data from 2020 to 2022 that used experiments to mimic real-world conditions, to understand how chemicals might move from materials to food.

Using this dataset, they found evidence that people around the world may be regularly exposed to 76 different breast carcinogens from food production materials, 80% of which come from plastic.

Scientists have concluded that current regulations, even when relatively strict, as in the United States and the European Union, are not enough to protect people from exposure to cancer-causing chemicals in their food.

The nearly 200 chemicals identified as potential carcinogens and used in food processing and packaging have been linked to the disease for a variety of reasons.

Thirty of these have been shown to cause cancer in rodent studies, and 67 others are suspected of causing cancer by damaging DNA or chromosomes.

The other 92 are considered endocrine disruptors, meaning they interfere with the body’s hormones and can cause cancer.

Do you have an idea for a food story that Newsweek should cover? Is there a food safety issue you are concerned about? Let us know via [email protected]We can seek expert advice and your story could be featured in Newsweek.

Reference

Parkinson, LV, Geueke, B., Muncke, J. (2024). Potential mammary carcinogens used in food contact articles: implications for policy, enforcement and prevention, Frontiers in toxicology 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/ftox.2024.1440331