The relative importance of non-dioxin-like PCBs (NDL-PCBs)

'The relative importance of non-dioxin-like PCBs (NDL-PCBs)' is a tentative item on the programme for the Sixth International PCB Workshop in 2010.

The European Commission has stressed the need to promote human health and well-being through improved food quality, including better food contamination control.  Since a high proportion of the PCBs found in food and human tissues are  NDL-PCBs, advancing our knowledge of their toxicity has become an urgent priority.

The European Commission has therefore launched ATHON (‘Assessing the toxicity and hazard of non-dioxin-like PCBs present in food’), a research project sponsored by the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, Priority 5 (Food Quality and Safety). The final report on this project will be issued in 2010 and a special session will then be held, focusing on its main results from areas such as: 

• Studies of effects of individual NDL-PCBs and defined mixtures of PCBs using quality-controlled analysis
• Exposure models for establishing NDL-PCB toxicity
• Neurotoxicity of NDL-PCBs
• Reproductive and developmental toxicity
• Liver toxicity and tumour promotion by NDL-PCBs
• QSAR modelling of data on effects of NDL-PCBs