Mycotoxins. Exposure assessment strategy

Secondary metabolites produced by moulds, mycotoxins are toxins that develop on plants out in the fields or during storage, all over the world. Cancers, nephropathies, hepatic pathologies, haemorrhagic syndromes, immunological and neurological disorders constitute a range of toxic effects attributed to mycotoxins. Ingestion of contaminated food (local or imported) is considered as the main route for exposure in humans. While the risks related to food being contaminated by mycotoxins are well known, the risks run by workers exposed to such toxins at their workplaces are much less well known. Mycotoxins and toxinogenic moulds have recently been highlighted in airborne and settled dust during various activities relating to cereals, stock-farming, manufacturing feed for horses, and transforming certain foodstuffs for human food, indicating that inhalation and skin contact could be additional exposure routes. In a context of climate change conducive to their development, combined with frequent co-contamination of foodstuffs by several mycotoxins, characterising the levels of exposure is an essential step in identifying the relevant occupational sectors and in better assessing the impact on the health of the workers. The strategy developed is based on an integrated approach taking into account the main exposure routes and the mycotoxins most relevant for human health. The first focus for the work relates to simultaneously assaying these mycotoxins in the workplace air by taking individual and atmospheric samples. The second focus for the work relates to biomonitoring of the exposures by assaying the mycotoxins and their metabolites in the urines of potentially exposed workers. These approach is being supplemented, to take account of exposures through eating food, with biological data on populations not occupationally exposed, and with information gathered on the eating habits of the workers in question.