ABERCO Tellitgrams (c)
Propylene Oxide (PPO)Cancer Risk Less than Negligible
The U.S. EPA is lowering the cancer risk assessment for PPO when used to treat food. However, the wording was such that a layman like myself couldn’t really understand just what it meant. So I asked our toxicologist, Dr. John Todhunter of SRS International (former head of EPA Pesticide Division under Reagan) to translate it. Here is his reply.
“EPA and other government agencies responsible for public health world-wide, try to place perspective on potential cancer risks. They do this by estimating the size of the risk to see if it is something they need to reduce or if it is a “negligible” risk.
These “negligible” risks are risks small enough that trying to further reduce them is not likely to actually improve safety in a meaningful way. As a general rule of thumb, EPA considers risks which are 1-in-a-million (or smaller) to be negligible. At a risk of 1-in-a-million (expressed scientifically as 1 X 10[-6] and assuming the actual incidence of cancer in the U.S. (the “true” background risk everyone experiences daily from various factors, but excluding lung cancer) is just above 1-in-a-thousand or 1 X 10[-3]. A 1-in-a-million risk is 1,000 times smaller than the background risk everyone experience and small enough to be considered negligible. Exposure to a risk this small won’t significantly affect a person’s chance of getting cancer.
Recently, EPA used two approaches to place perspective on the cancer risks which might potentially be associated with propylene oxide residues in the diet. Under an approach based on the biology and physiology of how the body handles dietary propylene oxide it was concluded that there was probably no risk associated with the small residues in the diet. Under a mathematical model based approach it was concluded that the potential risk of propylene oxide in the diet was 0.4 X 10[-6]
which is less than half the EPA’s negligible risk level. The combined conclusion from both approaches is that the risk is probably non-existent and, at the worst case, negligible. This provides a strong reassurance that the presence of propylene oxide in the diet at current levels-is safe.”
*Registered Trademark / Morris Warren 5/15/07
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