Relative Potency Factors for PFAS: How well does the concept align with human data?
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The concept of relative potency factors (RPFs) describing the toxic potential of chemicals in a group relative to a pivotal member of the group is appealing as it reduces the complexity of the assessment of mixtures. For per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), several sets of RPFs were suggested. We explore the impact of those RPFs on our data set on vaccination antibodies in one-year-old children (Abraham et al. 2020). In the absence of specific data, EFSA (2020) assumed equipotency, i.e., RPFs {1–1–1–1} for {PFOA–PFOS–PFHxS–PFNA}, respectively, and derived a TWI for the sum of these four PFAS, the only ones detected consistently in infant blood. Bil et al. (2023) derived internal RPFs from lower thymus weights in rats from studies by NTP. Bil et al. (2023) also derived RPFs for another potentially immunotoxic endpoint, i.e., globulin concentrations in rats. Using these factors, PFOA equivalent doses (PEQ) were computed and the strength of the dose-response relation was evaluated by ANOVA as performed by EFSA (2020). Furthermore, using a differential evolution algorithm (DEA), relative potency ranges which minimize the ANOVA p-value were determined (Table 1). In all cases, the highest PEQ exposure group had the lowest antibody titer.
Source: OpenAgrar
Authors: Mielke, Hans, Abraham, Klaus, Hoogenboom, Ron
Language: English
Subfield: Environmental Chemistry
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204617741