Risk assessment of dioxins, furans, and dioxin-like PCBs in food in Norway - Scientific Opinion of the Panel on Contaminants of the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food and Environment

Abstract

Dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCBs) are lipophilic chemicals with long half-lives in the environment. Dioxins include both polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF). Several congeners of PCDDs and PCDFs may occur, with varying number and positions of chlorine atoms in the molecules. Seventeen of these congeners are relatively persistent in animals and humans and exert similar toxicity. A subgroup of 12 out of 209 possible polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners show toxicological properties similar to PCDDs/PCDFs, and this subgroup is termed dl-PCBs (EFSA et al., 2018).