1. Former EFSA top official criticizes EFSA's management
2. Response to CEO report on EFSA conflicts of interest, from Steve Pagani of the EFSA
NOTE: Recently we announced a new report from Corporate Europe Observatory about yet more conflicts of interest at the EU's GM food/pesticide/food safety regulatory body, EFSA, this time within the ANS Panel, which gives scientific opinions on food additives.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13249
Our attention has been drawn to an interview of 2008, in which former ex-EFSA top official Herman Koeter strongly cricised EFSA's management after he left office (item 1), warning that it compromised EFSA's independence.
In response to the latest CEO report, EFSA defended its independence in an email to GMWatch (item 2): "It is worth noting that EFSA has been benchmarked against 10 other peer organisations by an external consultantcy [sic.] who found EFSA to have one of the most advanced and robust systems in place towards ensuring independence of scientific expertise and advice."
What is the unnamed "external consultancy" that came up with this ringing endorsement of EFSA's independence? A company called Milieu Ltd:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/mb110317/docs/mb110317-ax8b.pdf
Who they? According to their website, Milieu is "a consultancy focusing on international and European law and policy. Our lawyers, economists & technical experts work closely with our public sector clients to help develop more effective policies and regulatory structures in the areas of environmental protection, climate change and sustainable development, worker health and safety, consumer protection, fundamental rights, development of civil society and related fields."
http://www.milieu.be/
Milieu's senior technical associate is one Dr Iona Pratt, "a consultant toxicologist and chemical safety specialist" with "wide experience in the area of chemicals regulation in Europe as well as internationally".
http://www.milieu.be/iona_pratt.html
But this is not Pratt's only job. Amazingly, she is also vice-chair of the EFSA's ANS Panel on food additives.
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/ans/ansmembers.htm
More specifically, she is one of four members of this expert panel named in the CEO report as having failed to declare an active collaboration with the food industry-funded think tank and lobby group, the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI Europe).
http://www.corporateeurope.org/system/files/files/resource/EFSA_ANS_panel.pdf
While Pratt is not listed as an author of the Milieu report that praised EFSA's independence, in the light of this further conflict of interest, it can hardly be called an objective endorsement.
We find it interesting that even EFSA's defence of its independence turns out to reveal yet more evidence of conflicts of interest.
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1. Former EFSA top official criticizes EFSA's management
Vroege Vogels (Netherlands)
21 October 2008
http://vroegevogels.vara.nl/nieuws-item.131.0.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=347523&tx_ttnews[backPid]=842&cHash=a1a10d016967bbaec1a6f8aa62e725da
[English translation of excerpt from Dutch original]
Koeter warned that the independence and quality of the agency is at risk. He sees a lot of politically motivated requests from the European Commission, including a request to review the position on genetically modified organisms. Koeter believes that many requests for a rapid assessment of food additives could jeopardise the quality of the judgments. An internal survey shows that staff are very dissatisfied. Koeter said fewer and fewer scientists are willing to work for EFSA. While in 2003, 235 people responded to a vacancy, now it's only 70. Internally, scientists are afraid to have a diverging opinion, fearing for their contract.
An internal survey in January [2008] showed that less than one third of the staff called the working atmosphere 'good'. More than half believed the environment was degrading. Koeter finds it incomprehensible that EFSA head Catherine Geslain ignores all this.
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2. Response to CEO report on EFSA conflicts of interest, from Steve Pagani of the EFSA
(sent to GMWatch by email, 17 June 2011)
EFSA stands by the impartiality of the advice delivered, in particular through the selection process of its scientific experts, its comprehensive and rigorous policy on Declarations of Interests and through the collegial decision-making of the experts on the ANS Panel. EFSA's fundamental commitment, shared by all scientific experts working on EFSA's Panels, is to provide independent scientific advice of the highest quality to support risk managers. It is worth noting that the ANS Panel has issued scientific outputs which concluded on the need to lower Acceptable Daily Intakes (ADIs) of several food additives in order to provide maximum protection to European consumers.
EFSA is grateful to the hundreds of experts who sit on EFSA's panels and who dedicate their time and expertise to EFSA's work. It is worth noting that EFSA has been benchmarked against 10 other peer organisations by an external consultantcy who found EFSA to have one of the most advanced and robust systems in place towards ensuring independence of scientific expertise and advice.
According to EFSA's policy on Declarations of Interest, if EFSA is made aware that an interest has been omitted from a DoI because of simple error or by a difference in appreciation in what constitutes an interest, then EFSA will assess how this came about and carefully consider the interest in question. It is important to understand that an interest does not necessarily imply that there is a conflict of interest. Top scientific experts are actively engaged in the scientific community in order to provide, accurate, up-to-date and effective advice to support policy makers. It follows therefore they will potentially have many scientific interests to declare which EFSA then assesses to determine whether these constitute a conflict of interest specifically with reference to the mandate they are assessing. The review of an expert's DoI is a prerequisite for their membership of a Panel or a Working Group.
EFSA was made aware of the report released by the Corporate Europe Observatory via CEO's press release and is always ready to listen to its stakeholders and has mechanisms in place for ideas to be aired. EFSA would expect that any such concerns could be raised directly with the Authority.
EFSA will consider the points raised in the CEO report and whether any actions from EFSA are required in keeping with our policy on Declarations of Interests.
EFSA put in place processes for declaring interests when its scientific panels were established in 2003, launched a robust policy in 2007 and is in the process of developing a broader policy integrating all the mechanisms which further anchor independence in its governance and all its scientific decision-making processes.
EFSA will be launching a public consultation on its integrated policy on independence and scientific decision-making processes and would invite CEO, as well as all parties interested in EFSA's work, to contribute actively to this debate on the independence of science, which given the importance of science to society, is a debate which concerns us all.