title: Antibiotics exposure and health risks: chloramphenicol.
abstract: The antibiotic chloramphenicol (CAP) is banned from food production. Besides being a medicinal product, CAP is also a natural product, produced by Streptomyces Venezuelae. The lack of scientific data hampers setting of an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI). Consequently, a maximum residue limit (MRL) in food could not be established. This was then translated into a zero tolerance using the so-called Minimum Required Performance Limit (MRPL) level, viz. the achievable detection limit in food, to guide the zero tolerance policy. The MRPL is clearly not relevant to food safety and human health but is solely related to analytical technological capabilities. The increase in the latter enables detection at ever-lower levels and ignores toxicological relevance. We here provide arguments to use a Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC) for CAP that can accommodate developing toxicological insights.
authors.affiliation: Science Department, University College Roosevelt, P.O. Box 94, 4330 AB Middelburg, the Netherlands; Environmental Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA; Chair Working Group Chemical Food Safety of the Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI). Electronic address: j.hanekamp@ucr.nl.
authors.forename: Jaap C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Hanekamp
authors.affiliation: Department of Toxicology, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. Electronic address: a.bast@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
authors.forename: Aalt
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bast
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use / Q000633:toxicity*; D002701:Chloramphenicol / Q000627:therapeutic use / Q000633:toxicity*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005506:Food Contamination; D006801:Humans; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D002701:Chloramphenicol
keywords: Chloramphenicol (CAP); Human nutrition; Linear non-threshold (LNT) model; Lower Limit of Detection (LOD); Maximum Residue Limit (MRL); Maximum Tolerable Risk (MTR); Minimum Required Performance Limit (MRPL); Shrimps; Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC); Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI)