Brussels, 16/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which is coming under fire from non-governmental organisations for bias, celebrated its tenth anniversary in Parma, Italy, on 13 November. , EFSA highlighted its progress in food safety issues in the EU over the last ten years, and spoke also of the challenges that must be dealt with in future in order to do its work properly and prevent any new crisis of confidence among public opinion. The conference in Parma was entitled “EFSA@10: Prepared to meet tomorrow's challenges”, and was jointly organised by EFSA and the European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Issues (DG SANCO) (see EUROPE 10723).
Over and above the need to adjust to changes in science and technology, EFSA must draw up a hierarchy of priorities and put at the top the impact of cocktails of chemicals, the connections between diet and health, and taking account of long-term consequences in risk assessments, explained the participants at the conference. Improving risk communication, finding ways of ensuring sufficient finance for EFSA's work without having its reputation damaged by receipt of fees (the solution to this problem is in the hands of the Commission and the member states), training the next generation of researchers, improving dialogue with the member states and cooperating more closely with international bodies are further priorities for the future. “Independence, independence, independence,” was the message of NGOs at a civil society conference they organised in Parma the day before to echo the EFSA conference.
Fighting against mad-cow disease and halving the number of salmonella cases between 2004 and 2009, significant progress on flavourings and other food additives, pesticide residues, contamination of the food chain and health claims on food labelling are some of EFSA's achievements, thanks to the EU deciding in 2002 to separate off risk management from risk assessment and to take a scientifically-based approach, said Catherine Gelain-Lanéelle, EFSA's managing director. She said EFSA would continue to work in this direction and defend its staff and scientific experts.
Ladislav Miko, deputy director of DG SANCO, which is EFSA's main client because 85% of EFSA's work programme is laid down in legislation, explained that the number of EFSA scientific opinions has mushroomed from 174 in 2006 to 638 in 2011. He said EFSA must face developments in science, a challenge closely connected with risk assessment, requiring excellence, transparency and independence. A report by the EU Court of Auditors says that conflicts of interest are badly managed by EU agencies (see EUROPE 10708), but it “recognises” EFSA's efforts although pointing out that work must continue, he said, admitting that it is not easy even for the Commission to distinguish between interests and conflicts of interest. He said that the way the general public views science is key and that communication has to be both simple and accurate, particularly because EFSA will have to deal with ever more complex issues. He said the Commission was strongly and effectively committed to helping EFSA.
By video, MEP Dagmar Roth Behrendt (S&D, Germany) said that the European Parliament can help EFSA deal with these challenges by providing a critical eye. Mella Frewen, director general of FoodDrinkEurope, said that never before in Europe has food been safer and it was not only the EFSA that had to improve its communication, but everyone else as well because EFSA's reputation is at stake. She said tribute had to be paid to its work and everyone must protect its reputation. With the globalisation of trade and climate change, she said emerging risks would be the big challenge and innovation and diet were two priority areas.
Paolo Martinello, president of the European consumer bureau (BEUC), said the main challenge for the future was risk communication, but the biggest problem is risk management rather than at EFSA. Anthony Hardy, president of EFSA's Scientific Committee, said that expertise is under increasing pressure from industry and politicians and scientists had to be encouraged to commit to the assessment process and the general public sometimes had to accept lack of scientific certainty.
All speakers stressed the need for greater finance for EFSA if it is to do its work properly (see EUROPE 10728). Martinello said that it was pointless talking about independence if there is no money, but he said the idea of fees was dangerous. Industry has not yet a united view on this. Frewen said that small businesses don't see why they should pay the same amount as big businesses that have a team and submit a lot of cases, but others say fees should not be related to cases - a solution needs to be found. EFSA's board of managers wants a mechanism that ensures EFSA's independence, explained Sue Davies to this newsletter. Davies is chief policy advisor to British consumer association “Which,” and she chairs EFSA's board, which unveiled a congratulatory report in Parma and recommendations on the second external audit of EFSA (see EUROPE 10682).
Introducing the debate on how science can be helped to guide political decisions to ensure consumer protection, MEP Marit Paulsen, rapporteur on past EU legislation on food safety, said it was not only scientists that had to be listened to better, but political decision-makers have to learn to listen. She regretted the fact that politicians always agreed with the scientists and the short-term view of politicians (looking no further than their four or five-year term of office) was dangerously short. Massimiamo Mucchi, a professor at Trento University in Italy, said that society these days is not as passive and ignorant as in the past, but has contradictory expectations covering well-being, the economy, human enforcement and even predictability when scientific opinion is challenged (as happened recently with Italian seismologists). Expectations of science sit uneasily with opportunist expectations, desires for a miracle and unsatisfied expectations, and science always gets the blame, he said.
MEP Jose Bove (Greens, France) asked what was meant by the scientists everyone was talking about - discoverers, academic debate or suppliers of false ideas? He pointed out that Galileo had been laughed to scorn by the scientists of his day. Given the development of scientific knowledge, caution must be key and several points of view must be taken into account, he said, for farming, GMOs and pesticides. The environmental impact, the effects on water, insects, the economy and society in general, he said, all come under science. David Byrne, former EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner, said that Article 6 of the EU Regulation 178/2002 (on the creation of EFSA) says that risk assessment must be the foundation of political decisions and EFSA's strength was the fact it had done its work in a period of upheaval because it had been set up at the height of the mad cow crisis.
PAN Europe (Pesticide Action Network Europe) says the tenth anniversary of EFSA marks “ten years of blind love for industry.” It says that that EFSA has a track record of working closely with industry and with industry-related people, as was shown at the risk assessment organised on 7 November by EFSA where several people very closely connected with the agri-food lobby, ILSI - International Life Science Institute, spoke, such as Alan Boobis, Harry Kuiper, Joseph Schlatter and Bette Meek, which goes to show that EFSA is planning to continue its close cooperation with industry. PAN Europe does, however, praise the recent EFSA scientific opinion on the fact that the collapse of the bee population may be due to the use of pesticides, describing this as giving rise to hope for the future because EFSA has reviewed all the scientific publications, including those made by independent scientists, unlike the work of the “nebulous” ICPBR (International Committee on Plant-Bee Relationship), which PAN Europe explains is financed by the pesticide industry. (AN/transl.fl)