The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published on Wednesday 31 July its guidance on how human dietary exposure to newly expressed proteins in genetically modified foods should be estimated, based on a model using available information on the consumption and concentration of components.
Dietary exposure is an essential element in the risk assessment of genetically modified foods, EFSA emphasises.
Dietary exposure estimates should cover average and high consumers across all the different age classes and special population groups, but also identify and consider particular consumer groups with expected higher exposure.
These scientific guidelines have been validated by the EFSA standing working group on the safety assessment of genetically modified food and feed.
EFSA provides advice on how to use the concentration data of newly expressed proteins. It provides an overview of the different uncertainties associated with dietary exposure estimates, providing information on the strengths and limitations of the assessment.
The document also describes the information applicants need to provide on human dietary exposure to allow EFSA doing an appropriate evaluation of the assessment provided as part of the application dossiers.
The requirements described in this document will apply to applicants for an authorisation after a transitional period of 2 months after its publication.
EFSA carries out risk assessment of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 on genetically modified food and feed and Regulation (EU) No 503/2013 on applications for authorisation of genetically modified food and feed.
To consult the guide: https://bit.ly/2KlFarV (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)