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The EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM Panel) carries out risk assessment on contaminants in food and feed. The presence of hazardous chemical contaminants or undesirable substances in food and feed is often unavoidable as these substances may occur ubiquitously or are of natural origin. Therefore, human and animal exposure to such substances is also unavoidable. The task of the CONTAM Panel is to assess whether or not exposure to a chemical contaminant in food is likely to be associated with adverse health effects in the European population. Similarly, the Panel assesses if the exposure to a contaminant in feed is likely to be associated with adverse health effects in farm animals, fish and pets in Europe, or to represent a risk to the consumer of foods of animal origin. In contrast to EFSA Panels dealing with regulated substances where inter alia applications are taken into account, the CONTAM Panel relies on scientific information that is in the public domain. EFSA often launches calls for data on occurrence of contaminants in food and feedstuffs where Member States and other interested stakeholders are invited to submit data. Whenever possible and required the CONTAM Panel establishes for a substance a health-based guidance value such as tolerable daily intake. For substances that are both genotoxic and carcinogenic, or for which the data are inadequate to establish a health-based guidance value, the margin of exposure approach is used. Recently the CONTAM Panel also used the threshold of toxicological concern approach. In addition, the CONTAM Panel considers inherent uncertainties in relation to objectives, exposure and hazard characterisation in its risk assessments. During 2003-2012, the CONTAM Panel published 107 scientific outputs (55 on food, 43 on feed, 9 on food and feed).

Furan is an organic, volatile compound used in various chemical-manufacturing industries. Headspace gas chromatography is the analytical method of choice for obtaining reliable results on its occurrence. The presence of furan in some food items has been known since the late 1970s, but a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) survey published in 2004 revealed the occurrence of furan in a broad variety of canned and jarred foods, including baby food, that undergo heat treatment. Furan is carcinogenic in rats and mice, showing a dose-dependent increase in hepatocellular adenomas and carcinomas. In rats, a dose-dependent increase of mononuclear leukaemia is evident and a very high incidence of cholangiocarcinomas of the liver, even at the lowest dose tested. There is evidence to indicate that furan-induced carcinogenicity is probably attributable to a genotoxic mechanism. However, chronic toxicity with secondary cell proliferation may indirectly amplify the tumour response. From the available data, there is a relative small difference between possible human exposure and the doses in experimental animals required to produce carcinogenic effects. However, reliable risk assessment requires further data on both toxicity and exposure. The European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) Scientific Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) recommended these studies as part of a reliable risk assessment of furan in food.

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