Food Agency Revamps Rules to Boost Transparency

The European Food Safety Authority, seeking to deflect criticism over the independence of its work, yesterday (5 March) announced moves to clarify disclosure rules and guidelines on who can serve as scientific experts.

The measures are a response to criticism that the EU agency has often relied on industry expertise in its evaluations of products, including the safety of genetically modified crops. Agency officials described the independence policy as a prioritising and consolidation of existing guidelines rather than a major overhaul of standards.  

“It’s not new, it’s new that we put it up-front explicitly,” Dirk Detken, head of legal affairs for EFSA, told EurActiv. “This is not going to lead to a complete overhaul of the experts we have working at EFSA right now,” he said. Terms for members of the agency’s scientific committee and eight expert panels expire in July.

But clearly the agency is strengthening oversight in response to outside criticism. For example, for the first time EFSA will perform random audits of disclosure forms submitted by scientific experts to determine potential conflicts of interest...