iron board cover with foam_heat resistant tablecloth
The applicant did not provide new studies on the safety of HPMC, but made reference to previous assessment of celluloses (as a group) performed by other scientific bodies. Cellulose and cellulose derivatives were evaluated for their safety by JECFA (1990), which allocated a group ADI of ‘not specified’. The last comprehensive evaluation of cellulose and cellulose derivatives, including HPMC, for their use as food additives was done in 2017 by the ANS Panel (EFSA ANS Panel, 2018), which concluded that there was no need to set a numerical ADI. Although the data set available for the different celluloses is not complete and most of the studies were old and do not meet the current requirements of toxicological testing, the ANS Panel considered that the physico-chemical, structural, biological and kinetic similarities between the modified celluloses make it possible to apply a read-across approach among the different celluloses.