Amid growing criticism of its GMO bias and growing overall workload, the
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has decided to develop a database of
external scientific experts to help the agency carry out risk assessments
and enhance the transparency of the expert recruitment process.

EFSA is the EU's scientific risk assessment body on food and feed safety,
nutrition, animal welfare, plant protection and health. Following its
assessments, the Commission decides whether to authorise products on the
European market.

In recent years, some member states have criticised the agency, in
particular accusing it of approving genetically modified (GM) products
without proper research and relying too much on information provided by
industry only. In addition, with new regulation on health claims in force
since July 2007, EFSA is receiving an increasing number of scientific
dossiers to be assessed and the food industry has expressed its concern over
the agency's capacity to deal with the dossiers on time.

"EFSA is a growing organisation," said the authority's press officer Alun
Jones, adding that the establishment of the database is "a natural evolution
in our development". He rebutted the notion of any relationship between
criticism of the agency's GMO bias and the enlargement of scientific support
for it.

"We need more scientific experts accross the whole range of EFSA'a
activites," he said, explaining that these experts will not be hired as
members of scientific panels but as people providing support for the panel
members in preparing their opinions. The aim is "to take into account as
many views as possible".

The revised policy for the selection of scientific experts and for the new
database will, according to EFSA, also "contribute to enhancing the
transparency of the way in which experts are selected and invited to
participate in EFSA's scientific activities". Jones said the agency could
also hire non-EU experts if they are leaders in their field. The scientist
database will also be available to all the EU 27 countries, who may use it
to select experts for their own scientific activities.

Commenting on EFSA's workings, Greenpeace Europe spokesperson Mark Breddy
said the agency is currently "ill-equipped and under-funded to do what it is
supposed to do". On GMO authorisation, Breddy said the agency "relies
entirely on industry data," adding that there's no evidence that scientific
opinion in different member states and outside is being taken into account.
"Therefore, EFSA should be strengthened," he concluded.

Greenpeace urges EFSA to make sure that the new expert database broadens the
expertise involved in reaching its opinions, helps to make EFSA's risk
assessment processes become more transparent and that it lists only
scientists who do not have business interests.

"Having a database is not enough to solve the problems in EFSA's
decision-making process," noted David Azoulay, Friends of the Earth Europe's
chemicals campaign coordinator, adding that money and political will was
also needed to actually use the external experts.

www.checkbiotech.org