The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is charged with regulating pesticides, genetically modified (GM) foods, and food contaminants to protect public health. But some prominent EFSA regulators have conflicts of interest, holding positions in organisations that are funded by the same companies whose products they are supposed to regulate.
This report shows that over a period of many years, influential EFSA managers and regulators have been heavily involved with a US-based organisation called the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), which is funded by multinational pesticide, chemical, GM seed, and food companies.
Publicly funded regulators in the EFSA, as well as in US regulatory agencies, have developed a cosy relationship with ILSI. They collaborate with ILSI in workshops and conferences that work on redesigning the risk assessment processes under which ILSI member companies’ products are evaluated for safety.
EFSA regulators also collaborate with ILSI affiliates in publishing papers in scientific journals. Unlike most published scientific research in the field of toxicology, ILSI papers do not report the outcomes of actual research. Instead, they propose changes to risk assessment based on the outcomes of ILSI workshops and projects, citing as their authority ILSI and other industry-generated publications.
ILSI cultivates an image of independent scientific inquiry and constructive engagement with government-funded regulators. But its proposals on risk assessment follow a trend of making safety testing procedures less rigorous and cheaper for industry – at the expense of public health and the environment.
ILSI proposals are often uncritically embraced by EFSA regulators. They make their way into influential EFSA policy Opinions and Guidances on the risk assessment of pesticides, chemicals, and GM foods. In effect, EFSA is allowing industry to help design the rules of risk assessment for its products.
The presence of ILSI and other industry-affiliated people on EFSA scientific panels, combined with evidence of industry influence on EFSA policy, fatally undermines the integrity of the pesticide and food safety regulatory process.
If public confidence in the regulatory procedures for pesticides, chemicals, and GM foods is to be restored, EFSA must cease participating in privileged access meetings and projects on risk assessment with the industry it is paid to regulate. In addition, EFSA must make a ‘clean sweep’ of ILSI and other industry influence from its management boards and scientific panels.