France and Germany call for scientific shakeup in EFSA

摘要

France and Germany - two of the most powerful EU member-states - are calling for major changes in the way scientific assessment is done at the European Food Safety Authority. They want to replace the current expert panel system with a more collaborative approach in which national agencies would be involved in risk assessments. Valerie Baduel, representing the French food safety agency (Afssa), and Andreas Hensel, head of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), called for a different model for risk assessment at the management board meeting late last month in Rome. Criticizing the panel system, they instead favored the way pesticide assessments are done at EFSA, where a member-state does the risk assessment, which is then discussed through EFSA by other member-states. A collective risk assessment is agreed upon. Baduel and Hensel held up the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) as a better model than EFSA for performing risk assessments.