NGOs hit out at EFSA on eve of transparency conference

摘要

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is still not up to its responsibilities when it comes to transparency, according to a coalition of civil society groups*, which spoke out in an open letter on the eve of the agency's 3 October conference on transparency in risk assessment. Currently, EFSA does very little original research. It elaborates its opinions on the safety of all food and food-related products (such as additives, pesticides or genetically modified organisms -GMOs) using dossiers of studies and analyses performed or sponsored by the very same companies that are applying for market authorisation of these products in the EU, the groups complain. But these dossiers and the raw data of the tests summarised in them are routinely kept secret under commercial confidentiality agreements with regulators.