title: Exposure of the Irish population to PBDEs in food: consideration of parameter uncertainty and variability for risk assessment.
abstract: Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are brominated flame retardants used to retard the ignition and/or spread of fire. PBDEs are used in various consumer products, such as textiles, mattresses and TV screens. This study presents a chemical risk assessment for the Irish population based on exposure to PBDEs from food. Special regard is given to the influence of parameter uncertainty and variability on the margins of safety. To quantitatively model uncertainty and variability in concentration data and variability in consumer behavior, a hierarchical probabilistic model was constructed. This model was evaluated using a two-dimensional Monte Carlo simulation (2D-MCS) approach. By considering uncertainty and variability in concentration data, margins of safety (MOS) were derived that are lower by a factor of ∼2 compared to MOS based on dose estimates that only consider variability. The lowest MOS is 7.5 × 10(4) for BDE-99, with impaired spermatogenesis as toxic endpoint. Assuming an MOS of 10(4) as acceptable, we conclude that there is no significant risk for human health through intake of contaminated food. To investigate whether additional measurements could improve the quality of dose estimates, the statistic "uncertainty-to-variability (UVR)" was developed. By applying the UVR to our dose estimates, we show that, in our case, the datasets contain little uncertainty and additional measurements would not significantly improve the quality of dose estimates.
authors.affiliation: a Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich , Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 10 , CH-8093 Zurich , Switzerland.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Trudel
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tlustos
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: von Goetz
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Scheringer
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Reichert
authors.forename: Konrad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hungerbühler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004435:Eating; D005260:Female; D005411:Flame Retardants / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000032:analysis* / Q000633:toxicity; D005506:Food Contamination / Q000032:analysis*; D059022:Food Safety; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000032:analysis* / Q000633:toxicity; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D035501:Uncertainty
chemical_list: D005411:Flame Retardants; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers