UK FSA Warns Consumers of Latex Content of Packaging

14/08/06 About one third of all food wrapping contains latex, an allergen that possibly up to 6% of the population is allergic to, according to a new study carried out at Leatherhead Food International, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency, UK. More worrying was that the lab tests found that the latex, on occasions, was making its way into the food itself.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said “The Food Standards Agency advises consumers not to change what they eat or how they prepare it, as it is not clear that there actually is transfer of allergens from latex to food outside the laboratory."

People who are allergic to latex do not need much of it to trigger a reaction, even quantities as low as one billionth of a gram per millilitre (ng/ml) can. Latex is extensively used by the food industry, you can find it in confectionary cold-seal adhesives, fruit and vegetable stickers, even some ice-cream wrappers have latex in them.

Even though we know that latex does cause an allergic reaction in a significant number of people, there are no agreements with the food industry for safe levels of it.

In this study the scientists looked at latex levels in 21 different types of food packaging. They found that over 30% of the wrappers contained latex. An ice cream wrapper contained 370 ng/ml, three-hundred and seventy times the minimum that can trigger an allergic reaction in some humans.

A chocolate biscuit actually had 17 ng/ml of latex inside it, the latex had transferred from the wrapper into the food. Two other samples of foods also had latex inside them. The food Standards Agency stressed that a lab experiment does not necessarily mean the same happens outside.

The UK Latex Allergy Support Group says changes in food labelling rules are urgently needed. For some people there are no safe levels of latex, says the group.

The FSA says more research needs to be carried out before deciding on how to proceed.

The Packaging Society (IoP) was quick to respond to the media reports on the potential hazards of contamination of foodstuffs by latex proteins in food contact materials, claiming that they are highly misleading and likely to cause alarm amongst the general population. IoP said that in this instance, a detailed scientific paper, which was published on 7 August 2006 by the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) in the online edition of Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, has been summarised in the SCI’s magazine Chemistry and Industry and in a related press release. The resulting media reports have highlighted some aspects of the work but ignored other important points.

The work, carried out by Leatherhead Food International on behalf of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), is pioneering research. As noted in the Chemistry & Industry article, “This is the first attempt to comprehensively quantify the latex allergens in food and food packaging.” No attempt has previously been made to investigate the levels of latex proteins (or more correctly, latex allergens) which could potentially be extracted from food contact materials, nor has there been any work which studied the potential for such allergenic proteins to be transferred to the foodstuff. The methods used for testing levels of latex proteins in products (typically latex gloves) are not suitable or sensitive enough for this purpose. The researchers therefore had to devise their own new methods and test them out. This is all that this piece of research has achieved. It has demonstrated that, using the method devised, it can be shown that four particular latex proteins, known to cause allergic reactions, can be extracted from certain food contact materials (but not all four proteins can be easily extracted using this same method) and that there may - and the researchers are careful in their wording - be a possibility of the latex proteins transferring to some foodstuffs. In some cases, there is no absolute certainty that the protein found is actually from latex - for instance, it could be from certain fruits which are known to contain similar proteins. The researchers are also careful to point this out.

Reports have suggested that one third of the products tested contained identifiable latex proteins, IoP said. It is true that seven out of 21 food contact items were seen to contain one or more of the protein allergens at a level above a certain arbitrary figure (over 10 ng/ml), but the products were deliberately chosen in such a way that it was very likely that latex was one of the materials used in the product. It has also been quoted that the level of proteins in one chocolate biscuit was 20 times that known to be capable of causing a reaction. This is true according to the figures tabulated, but this statement should be treated with caution. There is only one single reference (cited by the Leatherhead researchers) which provides the figure of 1 ng/ml which is reported as the level at which an allergic reaction can take place “in sensitive individuals”. The word “sensitised” would normally be the one used to describe people who have been tested and found to be most likely to experience allergic reactions to a certain substance. The Packaging Society said that it should be noted that this figure of 1 ng/ml is based on the result of one previously sensitised individual reacting to a particular protein allergen (Hev b7) which was not, in fact, one of the four proteins tested by Leatherhead.