To review recent advances in research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and outline priority steps for risk assessment in consumer health protection, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) organized the ‘International PFAS Conference’ in Berlin in October 2025. Building on the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) opinion in 2020, global research activities on PFAS have intensified. The conference...

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is a hepatocarcinogenic mycotoxin found in animal feed contaminated by mold from the genus Aspergillus. It can be transferred into food of animal origin, such as the milk of dairy cows, as the metabolite aflatoxin M1 (AFM1), which has 10% of the potency of AFB1. A multitude of studies has been conducted over the last decades to quantify the transfer of AFB1 as AFM1 in milk. The transfer rates derived from t...

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) constitute a group of anthropogenic compounds that are ubiquitously distributed in the environment due to their widespread use in various industrial processes and consumer products. Among foodstuffs of animal origin, wild boar ( Sus scrofa ) livers may contain particularly high levels of PFAS. Additionally, wild boars have been identified as suitable bioindicators and are used by Germ...

Tetrachlorodibenzo- p -dioxin (TCDD) is a ubiquitous, toxic, persistent and bioaccumulative organic pollutant. TCDD can potentially enter the food chain through contaminated food of animal origin as a consequence of feed contamination. Prediction of the TCDD transfer from feed into animal products is thus important for human health risk assessment. Here, we develop several physiologically based toxicokinetic (PBTK) models of T...

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) are secondary metabolites of certain flowering plants. The ingestion of PAs may result in acute and chronic effects in man and livestock with hepatotoxicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity being identified as predominant effects. Several hundred PAs sharing the diol pyrrolizidine as a core structure are formed by plants. Although many congeners may cause adverse effects, differences in the toxic...