In May 2025, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published an updated risk assessment on perchlorate in food (EFSA Journal. 2025;23:e9393.). Therein, EFSA derives a new tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 1.4 µg/kg body weight (bw)/day for perchlorate. The new TDI is clearly higher than the TDI of 0.3 µg/kg bw derived in 2014 (approx. 4.5-times higher), however, is still based on the inhibition of iodine uptake by the thyroid gland in healthy adults. As the TDI is applicable for both short-term (approximately 2-week period) and chronic exposures, according to EFSA an acute reference dose (ARfD) for perchlorate was still deemed not necessary.
The EU Commission mandated EFSA with the re-evaluation because the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) derived a TDI in February 2022 that differed from EFSA's and the EFSA Guidance on the use of the Benchmark Dose (BMD) modeling in risk assessment was updated in 2017.
In its assessment, EFSA concludes that the chronic and short-term dietary exposure estimates to perchlorate are safe for all age groups, including pregnant women. The only exception is the upper bound of the 95th percentile for infants. However, the uncertainty analysis indicates a higher likelihood (over 50 %) of “safety” for all scenarios, including infant high consumers.
