The European Commission asked
EFSA
to update its 2011 risk assessment on hexabromocyclododecanes (
HBCDD
s) in food.
HBCDD
s, predominantly mixtures of the stereoisomers α‐, β‐ and γ‐
HBCDD
, were widely used additive flame retardants. Concern has been raised because of the occurrence of
HBCDD
s in the environment, food and in humans. Main targets for toxicity are neurodevelopment, the liver, thyroid hormone homeostasis and the reproductive and immune systems. The
CONTAM
Panel concluded that the neurodevelopmental effects on behaviour in mice can be considered the critical effects. Based on effects on spontaneous behaviour in mice, the Panel identified a lowest observed adverse effect level (
LOAEL
) of 0.9 mg/kg body weight (bw) as the Reference Point, corresponding to a body burden of 0.75 mg/kg bw. The chronic intake that would lead to the same body burden in humans was calculated to be 2.35 μg/kg bw per day. The derivation of a health‐based guidance value (
HBGV
) was not considered appropriate. Instead, the margin of exposure (
MOE
) approach was applied to assess possible health concerns. Over 6,000 analytical results for
HBCDD
s in food were used to estimate the exposure across dietary surveys and age groups of the European population. The most important contributors to the chronic dietary
LB
exposure to
HBCDD
s were fish meat, eggs, livestock meat and poultry. The
CONTAM
Panel concluded that the resulting
MOE
values support the conclusion that current dietary exposure to
HBCDD
s across European countries does not raise a health concern. An exception is breastfed infants with high milk consumption, for which the lowest
MOE
values may raise a health concern.