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1.10th EFSA anniversary: Two-day farmers and citizens initiatives
2.Five demands for change at EFSA
3.10 years of EFSA - 10 years of blind love for industry
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1.10th EFSA anniversary: Two-day farmers and citizens initiatives
La Via Campesina, 12 November 2012
 http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/food-sovereignty-and-trade-mainmenu-38/1332

Parma, Italy – Campaigners and farmers have joined forces to organise two days of action against the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on 12th and 13th November, challenging industry bias and reclaiming real food safety.

Organised by FIRAB, the Italian anti-GMO Task Force, the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) and Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), the events take place as EFSA marks its 10th anniversary and will start with a conference on Monday 12th November, looking at the science and politics of EFSA. On Tuesday 13th November there will be a flash mob outside the EFSA building at 10.30am.

EFSA was established 10 years ago, following the mad cow disease scandal, to ensure EU-wide scientific oversight and effective risk management. Its work directly impacts 500 million European citizens, 12 million farms, and a vast number of processing and catering businesses within the EU. It is a composite and complex universe of companies that produce, manipulate and trade foods very different in origin, nature and purpose.

EFSA has come under increasing criticism because of considerable industry bias which benefits the agro-industrial production system, but does not necessarily ensure quality, nutritious and healthy food.

Further concerns have been raised by blatant conflicts of interest at different levels (from the Board to the Scientific Panels), impairing the objectivity of the Authority decision-making process.

Nina Holland from Corporate Europe Observatory said: "So far, there are too many questions and doubts about EFSA’s impartiality. The fact that industry is allowed to carry out safety tests for its own products means that the European food safety system is highly flawed."

"The autonomy and plurality of the much needed scientific information to support decisions on food safety and environmental risks require that EFSA behaves like a glass house with no industrial shadows on its business" adds Luca Colombo, Secretary General of the Italian Foundation for Research in Organic and Biodynamic Agriculture.

"The recent Seralini study has undermined the persistent argument of the agro-industry that GM plants are safe" -concludes Andrea Ferrante, Italian member of the European Coordination Via Campesina. "Millions of small farmers and rural communities are currently economically and health-wise damaged by the use of GMOs and herbicides"

The two days of activities will include:
*a scientific&political conference on 12th November at the Aula Magna of the Economy Faculty - University of Parma (Via Kennedy 6) with farmers, activists, scientists, and European politicians such as José Bové and Monica Frassoni.
*a flash mob on 13th November from 10.30 in front of the EFSA building (Via Carlo Magno 1A, Parma) with photo opportunity and press conference.

For more info about the conference, please contact:
Luca Colombo, FIRAB, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , tel: +39 348 39 88 618
Nina Holland, CEO, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., tel: +31 630 285 042

For more info about manifestation, please contact:
Andrea Ferrante, Via Campesina Italy, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., tel: +39 348 01 89 221
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2.Five demands for change at EFSA
Corporate Europe Observatory, November 13 2012
 http://corporateeurope.org/news/five-demands-change-efsa

Signed by several European civil society networks and organisations, this list of demands for the reform of EFSA was published on Monday 12 November during a conference of farmers, scientists and citizens held in the premises of Parma's University, Italy.

(summary - full version downloadable in the pdf below)
 http://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/attachments/EFSA-demands-final-12nov.pdf

1. Prevent conflicts of interest
EFSA's independence policy should effectively exclude people with conflicts of interest from its scientific panels, working groups, scientific committee and staff. Also, the management board should be free from people with industry interests.

2. EU laws should be overhauled so that products are tested by independent bodies, not industry

3. A code of scientific practice should be established for EFSA
Currently it is often not clear how EFSA arrives at certain opinions and conclusions: for example, which scientific evidence it has taken into account and why. Scientifically rigorous, transparent, and replicable methodologies for EFSA’s risk assessment work should be established.

4. Improve transparency and accountability
EFSA must make accessible all data and information on which it bases risk assessments. All industry data, and EFSA’s decision-making processes on the data, must be available on the internet. Currently this is not the case for instance for pesticides.

5. Ensure wider participation
EFSA must broaden the area of scientific expertise of its experts. EFSA experts should be paid out of public funds for their safety assessment work, but industry must cover the cost. A system must be established to include different types of input into the risk assessment, including societal, economic, ethical, and environmental factors – though this should not be the task of EFSA.

Signatories

Friends of the Earth Europe, IFOAM EUGroup, Greenpeace European Unit, Pesticide Action Network Europe, Réseau Environnement Santé (RES), Sociedad Española de agricultura ecologica/Sociedad Española de agroecologia (SEAE), Corporate Europe Observatory, Earth Open Source, European Professional Beekeepers Association (EWIV), Food&Water Europe, ASEED Europe, BUND – Friends of the Earth Germany, Cancer Prevention and Education Society (CPES), Ecologistas en Accion, Fondation Sciences Citoyennes, GMWatch, Platform Aarde Boer Consument, Polish Forum of Organic Agriculture, Union Nationale de l'Apiculture Française, XminY solidarity fund
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3.10 years EFSA - 10 years of blind love for industry
PAN Europe, 12 November 2012
 http://www.pan-europe.info/News/PR/121112.html

Brussels - EFSA has a track record of working closely with industry and with industry-linked people presenting themselves as independent scientist. EFSA easily embraces industry ideas while forgetting about their mission to protect people and the environment.  We illustrate this 10 'lost' years by EFSA for improving human health and the environment with a few examples. However we see a glimmer of hope for the next 10 years in the recent EFSA-opinion on bees.


EFSA organised a range of 'scientific' colloquiums - generally organised with industry lobby club ILSI (International Life Science Institute) - crowded with industry people and crowded with industry-linked people, while civil society was excluded. Cases are the 2005-colloquium on genotoxic carcinogens (1), the 2006-colloquium on pesticide mixtures (2) and the 2011-joint EFSA/ILSI/CEFIC-workshop on TTC (3), an industry-tool to classify chemicals as 'safe' without testing. Many of the industry-linked people present have served in the EFSA-panels and illustrate the cosy relations.

While politicians decided to oblige regulators such as EFSA to take into account independent scientific work published in scientific journals, EFSA managed to write a Guideline (4) effectively excluding independent science by using the so-called "Klimisch-ranking". H.J. Klimisch is an employee of BASF claiming that industry-sponsored studies should be preferred over studies done in independent laboratories. EFSA themselves (CEF-panel, food contacts) (5) showed very clearly their bias on independent literature dismissing all 700 independent studies on the chemical Bisphenol A while continuing to base their conclusions on 4 industry-sponsored studies.

One of the clearest cases of conflict of interest was the work of EFSA on TTC (Threshold of Toxicological Concern). Industry consultant Susan Barlow volunteered to chair the working group and invited her network of industry people to join her. 10 out of 13 members of the TTC-wg. were people promoting the use of TTC in the past -generally together with ILSI- and still were supposed to perform an independent assessment. 8 out of 13 had formal relations with industry group ILSI (6).  Note the clear evidence for scientific misconduct of Ms. Barlow when she worked for the cigarette industry (7) which had no repercussions for her membership of EFSA-panels.

It is not only TTC which is embraced by EFSA but many industry-proposals and loopholes were adopted with help of the industry-linked in the EFSA-panels. Harmful effects demonstrated in animal studies many times were dismissed and considered "irrelevant' for humans, controls in animal studies were not used and substituted by statistical methods allowing harmful effects, toxic pesticide breakdown products were classified as 'non-relevant' (8), and wild plants and animals allowed to be killed by pesticides if they would return after one full year (called "recovery")

So everything is wrong in EFSA? No, not everything, a good inspiration for the next 10 year EFSA is the opinion on bees (9) made by the EFSA PPR-panel: a thorough review of the scientific literature, independent though non-GLP laboratory studies taken into account and conclusions in opposition with the work of the nebulous industry-funded ICPBR (International Committee on Plant-Bee Relationship) who established the rules for the honeybee toxicity assessment of their own chemicals.


For further information please contact:
Hans Muilerman, Tel: +316 55807255 Info, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

NOTES:

References and detailed information
(1) - EFSA/WHO INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE WITH SUPPORT OF ILSI EUROPE ON RISK ASSESSMENT OF COMPOUNDS THAT ARE BOTH GENOTOXIC AND CARCINOGENIC, Brussels, 2005.  This 2005-genotoxicity meeting –organised with ILSI- was an "invited-only" meeting (no civil society involved), crowded with industry-people from Nestle, Unilever, Coca-Coal, Procter & Gamble, Danone, PepsiCo, ILSI and industry-linked persons such as Barlow, Galli, Larsen, Schlatter, the latter group would show up in EFSA-panels for the years to come.  The aim of the meeting was finding a "safe” level for genotoxic carcinogens. This initiative served to undermine EU policy to prevent any exposure to genotoxic carcinogens at all.

(2) - EFSA SCIENTIFIC COLLOQUIUM, CUMULATIVE RISK ASSESSMENT OF PESTICIDES TO HUMAN HEALTH: THE WAY FORWARD, Parma, 2006. Another important civil society topic of pesticide mixtures is dealt with in a meeting again crowded with industry-people from BASF, Bayer, Syngenta, ECPA, ILSI and the industry-linked persons such as Barlow, Boobis, Galli, Larsen, Moretto and no civil society people invited.

(3) - Workshop on the Threshold of Toxicological Concern: Scientific challenges and approaches, Brussels, 2011. Another EFSA meeting organised with ILSI (and even CEFIC) took place in 2011 on the controversial industry-proposal for TTC (Threshold of Toxicological Concern), a tool to classify chemicals as "safe” without testing, even genotoxic carcinogens. Again exclusion of civil society and industry and industry-linked people (Barlow, Renwick, Gundert-Remy) dominating the meeting.

(4) -  Submission of scientific peer-reviewed open literature for the approval of pesticide active substances under Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009,  EFSA Journal 2011;9(2):2092. Main element is "Klimisch-ranking", stating that industry-GLP studies are more reliable than peer-reviewed open literature.

(5) - Scientific Opinion on Bisphenol A: evaluation of a study investigating its neurodevelopmental toxicity, review of recent scientific literature on its toxicity and advice on the Danish risk assessment of Bisphenol A, EFSA Journal 2010; 8(9):1829

(6) - A toxic mixture, Industry bias found in EFSA working group on risk assessment of toxic chemicals, PAN E report on TTC. A complete network of industry-linked people (Barlow, Boobis, Schlatter, Larsen, Bridges, Galli, Gundert-Remy, etc.) managed to infiltrate EFSA and to promote TTC .

(7) - Changing Conclusions on Secondhand Smoke in a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Review Funded by the Tobacco Industry, Elisa K. Tong, MD, Lucinda England, MD and Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, PEDIATRICS Vol. 115 No. 3 March 2005

(8) - Scientific Opinion on Evaluation of the Toxicological Relevance of Pesticide Metabolites for Dietary Risk Assessment, EFSA Journal 2012;10(07):2799


(9) - Scientific Opinion on the science behind the development of a risk assessment of Plant Protection Products on bees (Apis mellifera, Bombus spp. and solitary bees), EFSA Journal 2012;10(5):2668