The European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) has issued a priority list of food additives “for which scientific data are required to finalize their re-evaluation within deadlines established by European legislation.” Tasked with re-evaluating hundreds of food additives by 2020, EFSA’s Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources Added to Food (ANS Panel) has asked member states and other stakeholders to provide the following information for 51 food additives: (i) “figures from industry on the amounts of these additives they report using in their products”; and (ii) “data derived from analyses indicating actual levels of these additives found in foods and drinks from national food authorities, research institutions, academia, food industry, and other stakeholders.” To meet the evaluation deadlines, the ANS Panel has divided food additives into groups “based on the availability of scientific data.” The panel will accept data related to the 15 additives in the first group—which includes β-apo-8’-…
Category Archives Europe
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has announced a forthcoming public consultation to discuss its draft opinion on the potential health risks of bisphenol A (BPA). Slated for final adoption in November 2013, the draft opinion will take into account “ongoing scientific work on BPA at European and national levels” as well as the work of EFSA’s Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings and Processing Aids (CEF Panel), which in February 2012 agreed to undertake “a full re-evaluation of the human risks associated with exposure to BPA” from both dietary and non-dietary sources. According to a March 26, 2013, press release, EFSA last completed a full risk assessment for the substance in 2006, concluding at the time that dietary BPA exposures for adults, infants and children “were all well below” the Tolerable Daily Intake set at 0.05 mg/kg body weight/day. Since the 2006 opinion, however, scientific experts and national…
The European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) Scientific Committee has issued an opinion “that clarifies the scientific criteria for identifying an endocrine disruptor.” Requested by the European Commission, the opinion addresses “the testing and assessment of endocrine active substances (EASs) and endocrine disruptors (EDs)” by adopting the World Health Organization’s definition for EDs, which must meet the following three criteria: “the presence of (i) an adverse effect in an intact organism or a (sub)population; (ii) an endocrine activity; and (iii) a plausible causal relationship between the two.” The opinion also identifies “a reasonably complete suite of standardized assays for testing the effects of EASs [that] is (or will soon be) available for the oestrogenic, androgenic, thyroid and steroidogenic modalities in mammals and fish” known to be sensitive to endocrine disruption. The Scientific Committee has stressed, however, that not all EASs are EDs, ultimately advocating “a risk assessment approach” that evaluates substances…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has announced an April 9, 2013, scientific meeting to discuss its draft opinion on the re-evaluation of aspartame (E951). Issued by the agency’s Scientific Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources Added to Food (ANS Panel), the re-evaluation declined to revise the current Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for aspartame after concluding that the substance and its breakdown products “pose no toxicity concern for consumers at current levels of exposure.” Additional details about this conclusion appear in Issue 466 of this Update. The follow-up meeting seeks to clarify any comments received during the draft opinion’s consultation period, which ended February 15. Before adopting its final opinion on aspartame, the ANS Panel will take into account these responses and meeting discussions, as well as issue a separate report that outlines these proceedings. EFSA has asked “scientific experts in the field of food safety and parties who…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) have agreed to conduct a health risk assessment of phenylbutazone after officials reportedly discovered the anti-inflammatory drug “in a small number of horse carcasses intended for the food chain.” According to a March 7, 2013, news release, the European Commission requested the assessment as part of an EU-wide investigation into beef contaminated with horsemeat. “[U]sed sparingly in human medicine for the treatment of severe inflammatory conditions where no other treatment is considered suitable,” phenylbutazone is also approved for veterinary use but only in non-food producing animals such as dogs and sport horses. EFSA thus considers the drug a contaminant in food and will work with EMA to determine whether residues found in horsemeat pose any health risks to consumers. To this end, the agencies will consider “both the risk posed from consumption of the horsemeat itself as well as…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will host a meeting on March 20, 2013, in Brussels to discuss the agency’s work in the area of endocrine active substances (EAS) and endocrine disruptors (ED). The EFSA Scientific Committee will present its opinion on “Hazard assessment of endocrine disruptors: scientific criteria for identification of endocrine disruptors and appropriateness of existing testing methods for assessing effects mediated by these substances on human health and the environment,” which was created in response to the European Commission’s September 2012 mandate to define scientific criteria for identifying ED and to review whether existing toxicity methods are appropriate to identify and characterize potential endocrine activity (effect on endocrine system) and/or endocrine disruption (leading to an adverse effect) in humans and the ecosystem.
The U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint lodged by the Family and Parenting Institute (FPI) against Weetabix Ltd.’s product-branded app, concluding that the “WeetaKid” game, which prompted players to scan QR codes during game-play, “was persuasive and negative, and could lead children to understand that if they did not eat Weetabix they were failing in some way.” Focusing on several online games created by Weetabix, FPI apparently challenged whether (i) the WeetaKid app “exploited the credulity, loyalty, vulnerability or lack of experience of children by making them feel inferior or unpopular for not buying a product”; (ii) the WeetaKid app “included a direct exhortation to children to buy an advertised product”; (iii) advergames “on the Weetos and Nickelodeon websites were obviously identifiable as marketing communications”; and (iv) some of the advergames “advertised Weetos Bars, which would be classified as a product high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS),…
In the wake of a recent investigation conducted by the Food Standards Authority of Ireland that identified horse and pig DNA in beef products, the U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have published their own protocol for testing “food authenticity in processed meat products.” According to a February 6, 2013, FSA press release, the protocol calls for “specialized analytical techniques to provide information about the possible presence of horse or pig DNA in a range of beef products available to U.K. consumers.” As part of the extended survey, 28 local authorities (LAs) will analyze 224 samples from meat products selected as representative of those on the market. The protocol requires LAs to report screening samples by March 11, 2013, with any confirmatory tests reported by April 8. FSA also intends to identify brand names and describe any formal actions taken when it releases…
The European Parliament has approved a major reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) that aims to return fisheries “to sustainable stock levels” by 2020. According to a February 6, 2013, press release, the reforms will prevent member states “from setting quotas that are too high to be sustainable” and compel fishermen “to respect the ‘maximum sustainable yield’ (MSY), i.e., catch no more than a given stock can reproduce in a given year.” The revised CFP will also address how the industry treats “discards,” that is, “fish thrown back, usually because they are of an unwanted species or size,” by requiring fishing vessels “to land all catches in accordance with a schedule of specific dates for different fisheries, starting from 2014,” and by restricting landed catches of undersized fish “to uses other than human consumption.” In addition, the European Parliament has agreed to take a long-term approach to fishery management…
According to a news source, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (BKA) has imposed €60 million (US$81.4 million) in fines against 11 chocolate and confectionary companies, including the German subsidiaries of Kraft Foods and Nestlé SA, for allegedly establishing a cartel in the late 2000s to fix prices. While Nestlé has reportedly indicated that it will challenge the fines, claiming that the allegations are unjustified and that BKA misinterpreted the law, a Kraft spokesperson has apparently confirmed that the company will pay its fine. BKA President Andreas Mundt said, “In 2007 raw materials prices for chocolate production such as milk and cocoa rose sharply. Companies obviously wanted to be sure they could pass these costs on to consumers. Competition with competitors was quickly switched off and consumers were burdened with price increases.” Prices reportedly rose by as much as 25 percent. Company offices were searched after a whistleblower came forward in 2008, and…
