Environmental Engineering Laboratory, Departament d'Enginyeria Química, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
IISPV, Hospital Universitari Sant Joan de Reus, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43201 Reus, Spain.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Feb 8;18(4):1598. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18041598.
Seafood, one of the most important food commodities consumed worldwide, is considered a high-quality, healthy, and safe food option. However, marine ecosystems are the ultimate destination for a large group of chemicals, including contaminants of emerging concern, and seafood consumption is a major pathway of human exposure. With growing awareness of food safety and food quality, and increased demand for information on the risk of contaminants of emerging concern, there is a need to assess food safety issues related to harmful contaminants in seafood and ensure the safety of marine food resources. In this study, the risks of emerging compounds (endocrine disruptors, brominated flame retardants, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, and toxic elements) in fish and seafood were analyzed according to their PBT (persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity) properties as well as in terms of their concentration levels in seafood. A hazard index (HI) was estimated for each compound by applying an artificial neural network (ANN) approach known as Self-Organizing-Maps. Subsequently, an integrated risk rank (IRI) was developed considering the values of HI and the concentrations of emerging compounds in seafood species gathered from the scientific literature. Current results identified HHCB, MeHg, NP, AHTN and PBDE209 as the top five highest ranked compounds present in seafood, according to the 50th percentile (mean) of the IRI. However, this ranking slightly changed when taking into account the 99th percentile of the IRI, showing toxic elements, methylmercury and inorganic arsenic, as having the highest risk. The outcome of this study identified the priority contaminants and should help in regulatory decision-making and scientific panels to design screening programs as well as to take the appropriate safety measures.
海鲜是全球消费的最重要的食品之一，被认为是高质量、健康和安全的食品选择。然而，海洋生态系统是包括新兴关注污染物在内的大量化学物质的最终归宿，而海鲜消费是人类暴露的主要途径。随着人们对食品安全和食品质量的认识不断提高，以及对新兴关注污染物风险信息的需求不断增加，有必要评估与海鲜中有害污染物相关的食品安全问题，并确保海洋食品资源的安全。在这项研究中，根据持久性、生物累积性、毒性 (PBT) 特性以及海鲜中新兴化合物（内分泌干扰物、溴化阻燃剂、药品和个人护理产品以及有毒元素）的浓度水平，分析了鱼类和海鲜中新兴化合物的风险。应用自组织映射 (Self-Organizing-Maps) 等人工神经网络 (ANN) 方法估算了每个化合物的危害指数 (HI)。然后，考虑从科学文献中收集到的海鲜物种中新兴化合物的 HI 值和浓度，开发了综合风险等级 (IRI)。根据 IRI 的第 50 个百分位数（平均值），当前结果确定 HHCB、MeHg、NP、AHTN 和 PBDE209 为海鲜中排名前五的最高化合物。然而，当考虑 IRI 的第 99 个百分位数时，这种排名略有变化，显示有毒元素、甲基汞和无机砷的风险最高。这项研究的结果确定了优先污染物，这应该有助于监管决策和科学小组设计筛选计划，并采取适当的安全措施。
