“189 Breast Cancer-Caused Chemicals Found in Food Packaging”

A study has warned that food that is shrink-wrapped with plastic wrap, vacuum-sealed in cardboard trays or in paper containers can expose people to nearly 200 chemicals linked to breast cancer. This is based on a paper by researchers from Switzerland, the U.S., the U.K., and the Czech Republic, published in Frontiers in Toxicology on the 24th (local time), as reported by the health and medical webzine Health Day.

Commonly used food packaging contains 189 chemicals that can cause breast cancer. The researchers pointed out that these harmful chemicals, including perfluorinated compounds (PFAS), bisphenols, and phthalates, known as “forever chemicals,” can migrate from packaging to food and be consumed by people.

“This study is important because it shows that there is a significant opportunity to prevent human exposure to chemicals that cause breast cancer,” said study lead author Dr. Jane Munke, an environmental toxicologist. “The potential to prevent cancer by reducing the toxic chemicals in our daily lives is underexplored and deserves more attention.” Dr. Munke is the executive director and chief science officer of the Food Packaging Forum (FPF), a nonprofit private organization headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Food Packaging Forum has compiled a comprehensive database of chemicals in food packaging, based on information from thousands of published scientific studies. Using this database, the researchers identified 143 chemicals in plastic packaging that have been linked to breast cancer, and 89 in paper or cardboard packaging. Excluding duplicates in both, the total is 189.

There is strong evidence that humans are regularly exposed to at least 76 cancer-causing chemicals through food, the researchers said. These chemicals are used in food packaging despite restrictions on their use in the United States, the European Union, China, South America and elsewhere, the researchers noted.

The researchers found that about 40 of the 76 carcinogenic chemicals have already been classified as harmful in some way by various international regulatory agencies, but are still found in food packaging. This shows that existing regulations are not enough to protect human health, the researchers noted.

In another paper published last week in Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, the researchers reported that more than 3,600 chemicals leach into food worldwide during storage, processing, and packaging. Of those, 79 are known to cause cancer, genetic mutations, and endocrine and reproductive problems.

The paper can be found at the following link (