Committee on the Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment 2021

The Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COC) evaluates chemicals for their potential to cause cancer in humans at the request of UK Government Departments and Agencies.

The membership of the Committee, agendas and minutes of meetings, and statements are all published on the internet (Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment).

This year’s meetings continued in virtual form, and I am grateful to Members, Secretariat and other contributors for ensuring that the work continues, despite the challenges this has brought.

The Committee have this year started considerations around relevance and reliability of evidence, a piece of work being jointly considered with COM and COT and this will continue into 2022, and aligned with work being undertaken by the FSA Science Council on third party evidence.

We have continued our review and update of the COC guidelines, undertook our annual horizon scanning, and continued the discussion on modification of risk of developing clinical cancer by chemicals as part of our efforts to review the conceptual framework we use for assessment and advice. This last topic will take time to come to fruition but crucially relies on Members being aware of, and integrating, new results from emerging technologies. We will continue to work on developing our work in this area in the coming years to ensure our guidance to Government Departments and Agencies is relevant to the challenges we face.

Professor David Harrison

MD DSc FRCPath FRCPEd FRCSEd