- Email: [email protected]
EFSA 15th scientific colloquium: Emerging risks in food - from identification to communication
Trends in Food Science & Technology 22 (2011) 249e252
Conference Report
EFSA 15th scientific colloquium: Emerging risks in food - from identification to communication Andrea Altieria,*, Tobin Robinsona, Marcel Mengelersb, Arie Havelaarc,d, Djien Liema, Vittorio Silanoa and Stef Bronzwaera a
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), L.Palli 5/a, I-43000 Parma, Italy (Tel.: D390521036330; fax: D3905210360330; e-mail: andrea.altieri@efsa. europa.eu) b Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA), Prinses Beatrixlaan 2, 2595 AL, The Hague, The Netherlands c Centre for Infectious Diseases Control Netherlands, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, PO Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands d Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, PO Box 80178, Utrecht, The Netherlands The increasing complexity of our food and feed production systems, the globalisation of trade, major environmental challenges, and the introduction of novel foods and of new food processing technologies may give rise to new risks in the food chain. As a consequence, decision-makers are now * Corresponding author. 0924-2244/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2011.02.005
becoming increasingly aware of the importance of having robust systems in place to identify risks at their early inception. According to current EU Regulations on Food Safety, EFSA is mandated to “undertake action to identify and characterise emerging risks”, and in 2008 EFSA established, for this purpose, a dedicated unit on emerging risks. In October 2010, over 100 international experts from 29 countries gathered in Parma at the Colloquium on “Emerging Risks in Food - from Identification to Communication”, for an open scientific debate on four main topics related to emerging risks, namely: (i) available methods to identify new hazards and/or exposures and assess emerging risks; (ii) strategic sources of information for data collection; (iii) identification of drivers of change as underlying causes of emerging risks; (iv) opportunities for the establishment of an international network to communicate on emerging risks to risk managers and policy makers. The outcome of this discussion provides practical inputs for developing of a European framework for emerging risks identification.
In October, 2010, over 100 international experts from 29 countries, including US, Australia and New Zealand, gathered in Parma, Italy, for the Colloquium on “Emerging Risks in Food - from Identification to Communication”. Representatives from the European Commission, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), EU Member States, pre-accession and potential candidate countries, several inter-governmental organizations (e.g. FAO and WHO), as well as several food companies took part in the Colloquium. This event is one of the Scientific Colloquium Series hosted since 2004 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to provide a forum for international debates on selected scientific issues related to risk assessment in food and feed. As other Colloquia, it was organised in a way that provides ample opportunity for interactive exchange of views and discussion amongst participating experts. Following a short plenary session consisting of a few introductory presentations, participants split up into different discussion groups. The outcome of these discussions were presented and discussed in a final plenary session to formulate the conclusions of the Colloquium and, as appropriate, recommendations to EFSA. In a rapidly changing world, governments are frequently confronted with challenges arising from a broad range of domains. The increasing complexity of current food and feed production systems, the globalisation of trade, the introduction of novel foods and of new food processing
250
A. Altieri et al. / Trends in Food Science & Technology 22 (2011) 249e252
technologies, climate change and other factors, may give rise to new hazards and/or exposures in the food chain. In addition to other negative impacts, these hazards and/or exposures, if not properly identified and controlled, are likely to cause adverse effects on human, animal and plant health. Moreover, already known risks may re-emerge due to a variety of reasons, such as the expansion of our internal market, changes in the (dietary) habits of our citizens or the changing conditions and methods relating to food production. As a consequence, decision-makers are now becoming increasingly aware of the importance of having robust systems in place to identify new hazards and assess risks at their early inception (Havelaar et al., 2010; King & Thomas, 2007; Kocharov, 2010). Ideally, such a system would provide an opportunity for risk assessors to undertake the risk characterisation and communication well in advance, and for risk managers to put in place timely strategies for prevention and control, thus avoiding undesirable consequences in the general population. According to current EU Regulations on Food Safety, EFSA is mandated to undertake action to identify and characterise emerging risks, and in 2008 EFSA established, for this purpose, a dedicated unit on emerging risks (EC, 2002). Over the last few years, EFSA has started to implement its programme by sponsoring consultations with external experts, developing an operational definition of emerging risks and an overall framework for the collection, analysis and evaluation of the relevant information, and establishing an ad hoc network (EFSA, 2009; VWA et al., 2006). The definition of an “emerging risk” currently in use in EFSA is that developed by the Scientific Committee in 2007: “an emerging risk to human, animal and/or plant health is understood as a risk resulting from a newly identified hazard to which a significant exposure may occur, or from an unexpected new or increased significant exposure and/or susceptibility to a known hazard”(EFSA, 2007). The Colloquium on Emerging Risks, held in Parma last October, brought together international experts from different sectors for an open scientific debate on four main topics related to emerging risks, namely: (i) available methods to identify new hazards and/or exposures and assess emerging risks; (ii) strategic sources of information for data collection; (iii) identification of drivers of change as underlying causes of emerging risks; (iv) opportunities for the establishment of an international network to communicate on emerging risks to risk managers and policy makers. The outcome of this discussion provides practical inputs for developing of the EFSA’s methodological framework for assessing emerging risks. As the emergence of new risks, including those in the food chain, may depend on a variety of different factors and circumstances, which may be very difficult to predict, the systematic identification of new hazards and assessment of emerging risks is a process involving the gathering and evaluation of large amounts of information from different sources, including wide expert consultations, with the aim
of supporting decision-makers on potential future threats. Moreover, as data leading to the identification of new hazards and/or exposures are likely to be characterised by considerable limitations and uncertainties, the assessment of emerging risks requires a structured intelligence approach, based on a high level of organization and multidisciplinary expertise in a broad range of sectors. Principles and methods for identifying new hazards and/or exposures and assess emerging risks have been formalised mainly in the context of “Foresight”. Foresight is a well-established process, rarely applied to food safety, that encompasses a broad range of intelligence activities aimed at enhancing future oriented thinking for strategic planning and policy makers (Popper, 2008). Qualitative and quantitative methods are available to generate, elicit, synthesise and filter information at different stages of the process (e.g. expert panels, trend analysis, Delphi studies, literature reviews, horizon and internet scanning, scenario building among others). The selection of the most appropriate set of methods should be done by weighing a set of criteria, including their ability to gather and filter information, the time anticipation horizons, the outputs expected by the policy makers, the expertise and resources available. Lastly, but not of minor importance, the validation of the efficacy of a system for the identification of emerging risks is a challenging issue to be seriously considered by taking into account not only the evaluation of the ability of the system to identify new and re-emerging risks earlier than traditional systems, but also the usefulness of other types of outputs, such as the establishment of networks, the generation of new knowledge and new paradigms, and the fostering of innovation and technologies. The outcome of the discussion on strategic sources of information highlighted a number of issues of potential interest. The remit of EFSA is extremely broad, which makes it challenging to be able to monitor effectively all relevant hazards possibly coming from biological, chemical, and physical agents as well as human behaviour factors (e.g. excessive or unbalanced nutrition). In order to clarify what types of sources (e.g. surveillance data, results from recent research projects, online media reports) to look for and which to monitor, clear targeted issues/topics should be first identified. Once the data on potential new hazards have been collected, connecting them in a realistic context is crucial to define plausible future scenarios. For this scope the importance of a multidisciplinary approach, involving the stakeholders at national and international level can not be overemphasized. With reference to data collection, the types of data of potential interest are various, ranging from structured and unstructured to qualitative and quantitative information. For this purpose communication and networking is essential to avoid duplication of efforts. Similarly, sources of information are extremely variable. They range from human and animal surveillance data, to recent development from research, but also from information collected by the industry from post-marketing surveillance, to
A. Altieri et al. / Trends in Food Science & Technology 22 (2011) 249e252
open source information available from the media, among others. With reference to possible strategies and tools to facilitate data collection, it has been suggested to establish multilateral agreements to share information with the EU Member States and inter-governmental agencies, but also to develop and customise web-scanning tools, and to establish reward research programs specifically designed for the identification of emerging risks. With reference to the establishment of a European network dedicated to emerging risks, it was noted that a number of competent bodies addressing this issue, along with some network systems designed to identify emerging risks in different sectors including food, already exist. The challenge is, therefore, to harmonise terminology and procedures and to develop a network system involving key partners from all interested European, (inter-)national and main Third Countries institutions and organizations, and stakeholders, to share relevant information on emerging risks in real time. To such an end, it will be crucial that networks are flexible, involving, when appropriate, also actors from outside the food chain. In order to avoid overload of information, it was considered preferable to share intelligence and selected signals already identified rather than raw data to be analysed. According to the EC Regulation 178/2002, EFSA has a statutory obligation to communicate on food and feed emerging risks at a European level. When communicating on emerging risks, a careful consideration of the terminology used is warranted to avoid unnecessary scares associated with risk overestimation or a lack of response due to a risk under evaluation. The emerging risks to be transmitted should be carefully selected and clearly explained, avoiding overload of information. Similarly, the terminology used to communicate on emerging risks should be carefully weighted. For example, the use of the word “risk” may trigger more concern than appropriate and the term “emerging issue” may be useful to discriminate between early signals and those issues confirmed to be of concern. An emerging issue may be defined as one that has very recently been identified and for which the available data to conduct a risk assessment is very limited (Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR), 2009). Moreover, the communication should clearly address and be proportionate to the type of issues (e.g. need for immediate action, potential magnitude of the impact, uncertainties entailed). The potential usefulness of a particular method of expert elicitation was discussed in one of the working groups to put into perspective the identification of “drivers of change” as underlying causes of emerging risks in food safety. Drivers have been defined as issues shaping the development of a society, organisation, industry, research area, or technology (often classified in categories such as Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, i.e. STEEP). One important characteristic of drivers is that they may act as modifiers of effect on the onset of emerging
251
risks, namely they can either amplify or attenuate the magnitude or frequency of risks arising from various sources. The participants were asked to establish which drivers of change they would consider the most important with regards to emerging risks in food and feed safety, identify the most plausible consequences of these drivers on food and feed safety, according to likelihood and severity. This scenario building exercise provided useful feedback on how to facilitate interactions between multiple actors in situations where quantitative empirical data are lacking, and expert judgement from a broad range of domains is needed. The European Union has reached over the last decade unprecedented high levels of food safety, introducing the "farm to fork" approach, strict new laws on food safety covering the entire European Union, and establishing EFSA, an independent body responsible for giving scientific advice and information on risks associated with the food chain. Whilst EFSA appears to be well equipped to deal with emerging risks, procedures in this area need to be well defined in order to avoid duplication in the work of the risk assessor and that of the risk manager, and ensure coherence of the data collection strategy. The need for balanced and proportionate assessments of emerging risk clearly emerged from the discussion. The main objective of a system to identify new hazards and/ or exposures and assess emerging risks from a risk management perspective is prevention, without creating false expectations or unjustified scares among the members of the public. It is essential that all those possibly involved receive clear, consistent and up-to-date information about risk situations, which could be changing rapidly. When provided with accurate and useful information, everybody is better equipped to make informed decisions. Tackling risks eperceived, ongoing or emerging is one of the greatest challenges we face. Yet they become more manageable if the right tools, mechanisms and the most up-to-date scientific advice are in place. The outcome of the colloquium provided EFSA with a set of useful recommendations on future steps: i) considering the very large remit of EFSA, clear targeted issues/topics should be agreed prior to the selection of strategic sources of information to be monitored and EFSA should communicate this clearly to avoid unrealistic expectations; ii) to prioritise most suitable data sources for data collection, EFSA should fully benefit from the existing knowledge networks and databases available internally, and establish multilateral agreements with EU Member States, selected Third Countries and Inter-governmental and International Agencies to share information; iii) when interpreting and filtering data gathered, a multidisciplinary approach is strongly advisable in order to interconnect data in a broad context; iv) the use of creative methods (e.g. scenarios building) in combination with quantitative empirical data and expert
252
A. Altieri et al. / Trends in Food Science & Technology 22 (2011) 249e252
judgement should be further explored to produce new original information on emerging risks; v) effective and balanced communication approaches with risk managers on emerging risks should be developed, avoiding overload of information and possible misunderstandings. Finally, it was very reassuring to learn that indeed EFSA is already anticipating most of the following steps by setting up different networks, databases and tools. The proceedings of the meeting will be published as Colloquium 15th on “Emerging Risks in Food, from Identification to Communication” of the EFSA Science Colloquia series. Details can also be found at http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/ scpublications/colloquiareports.htm/. Disclaimer The views or positions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent in legal terms the official position of the European Food Safety Authority. The European Food Safety Authority assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear. Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank Vanhoorde R., Florin M.V., O’Brien J., Popper R., and Marvin H. for their excellent presentations at the opening session; Ruttas-Kuttim R., Leemhuis C., Donohoe T., and Noteborn H. for having done the challenging job as rapporteur of the discussion groups; and Popper R., Uyttendaele M., De Marchi B., and Rowe G. for skilfully chairing the discussion groups.
References EC, European Commission (2002). REGULATION (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety. Official Journal L 031, 01/02/2002 P. 0001-0024. EFSA, European Food Safety Authority (2007). Definition and description of “emerging risks” within the EFSA’s mandate. http://www.efsa. europa.eu/en/scdocs/doc/sc_definition_emerging_risks_en.pdf EFSA, European Food Safety Authority (2009). Report of the EFSA Scientific Cooperation (ESCO) Working Group on Emerging Risks. EFSA Technical Report, 224,1e33. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/ escoemrisk/documents/escoemriskreport.pdf Havelaar, A. H., Brul, S., de Jong, A., de Jonge, R., Zwietering, M. H., & Ter Kuile, B. H. (2010). Future challenges to microbial food safety. Int J Food Microbiol, 139(Suppl. 1), S79eS94. King, D. A., & Thomas, S. M. (2007). Science and government. Taking science out of the boxeforesight recast. Science, 316, 1701e1702. Kocharov, A. (2010). EFSA and identification of emerging risks. European Food and Feed Law Review, 3, 144e155. Popper, R. (2008). Foresight Methodology. In: Georghiou, L., Cassingena, J., Keenan, Popper, R. (Eds.), The Handbook of Technology Foresight, Edward Elgar, Aldershot. Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR, 2009). Emerging issues and the role of the SCENIHR. Position paper. http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_ scenihr/docs/scenihr_s_01.pdf VWA (2006). Report of the EFSA Service Contract EFSA/ SC/Tender/01/2004. Forming a Global System for Identifying Food-Related Emerging Risks - EMRISK, coordinated by the Ditch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA). http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/supporting/pub/224r.htm (accessed March 2011).
Conference Report
EFSA 15th scientific colloquium: Emerging risks in food - from identification to communication Andrea Altieria,*, Tobin Robinsona, Marcel Mengelersb, Arie Havelaarc,d, Djien Liema, Vittorio Silanoa and Stef Bronzwaera a
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), L.Palli 5/a, I-43000 Parma, Italy (Tel.: D390521036330; fax: D3905210360330; e-mail: andrea.altieri@efsa. europa.eu) b Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA), Prinses Beatrixlaan 2, 2595 AL, The Hague, The Netherlands c Centre for Infectious Diseases Control Netherlands, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, PO Box 1, 3720 BA Bilthoven, The Netherlands d Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, PO Box 80178, Utrecht, The Netherlands The increasing complexity of our food and feed production systems, the globalisation of trade, major environmental challenges, and the introduction of novel foods and of new food processing technologies may give rise to new risks in the food chain. As a consequence, decision-makers are now * Corresponding author. 0924-2244/$ - see front matter doi:10.1016/j.tifs.2011.02.005
becoming increasingly aware of the importance of having robust systems in place to identify risks at their early inception. According to current EU Regulations on Food Safety, EFSA is mandated to “undertake action to identify and characterise emerging risks”, and in 2008 EFSA established, for this purpose, a dedicated unit on emerging risks. In October 2010, over 100 international experts from 29 countries gathered in Parma at the Colloquium on “Emerging Risks in Food - from Identification to Communication”, for an open scientific debate on four main topics related to emerging risks, namely: (i) available methods to identify new hazards and/or exposures and assess emerging risks; (ii) strategic sources of information for data collection; (iii) identification of drivers of change as underlying causes of emerging risks; (iv) opportunities for the establishment of an international network to communicate on emerging risks to risk managers and policy makers. The outcome of this discussion provides practical inputs for developing of a European framework for emerging risks identification.
In October, 2010, over 100 international experts from 29 countries, including US, Australia and New Zealand, gathered in Parma, Italy, for the Colloquium on “Emerging Risks in Food - from Identification to Communication”. Representatives from the European Commission, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), EU Member States, pre-accession and potential candidate countries, several inter-governmental organizations (e.g. FAO and WHO), as well as several food companies took part in the Colloquium. This event is one of the Scientific Colloquium Series hosted since 2004 by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to provide a forum for international debates on selected scientific issues related to risk assessment in food and feed. As other Colloquia, it was organised in a way that provides ample opportunity for interactive exchange of views and discussion amongst participating experts. Following a short plenary session consisting of a few introductory presentations, participants split up into different discussion groups. The outcome of these discussions were presented and discussed in a final plenary session to formulate the conclusions of the Colloquium and, as appropriate, recommendations to EFSA. In a rapidly changing world, governments are frequently confronted with challenges arising from a broad range of domains. The increasing complexity of current food and feed production systems, the globalisation of trade, the introduction of novel foods and of new food processing
250
A. Altieri et al. / Trends in Food Science & Technology 22 (2011) 249e252
technologies, climate change and other factors, may give rise to new hazards and/or exposures in the food chain. In addition to other negative impacts, these hazards and/or exposures, if not properly identified and controlled, are likely to cause adverse effects on human, animal and plant health. Moreover, already known risks may re-emerge due to a variety of reasons, such as the expansion of our internal market, changes in the (dietary) habits of our citizens or the changing conditions and methods relating to food production. As a consequence, decision-makers are now becoming increasingly aware of the importance of having robust systems in place to identify new hazards and assess risks at their early inception (Havelaar et al., 2010; King & Thomas, 2007; Kocharov, 2010). Ideally, such a system would provide an opportunity for risk assessors to undertake the risk characterisation and communication well in advance, and for risk managers to put in place timely strategies for prevention and control, thus avoiding undesirable consequences in the general population. According to current EU Regulations on Food Safety, EFSA is mandated to undertake action to identify and characterise emerging risks, and in 2008 EFSA established, for this purpose, a dedicated unit on emerging risks (EC, 2002). Over the last few years, EFSA has started to implement its programme by sponsoring consultations with external experts, developing an operational definition of emerging risks and an overall framework for the collection, analysis and evaluation of the relevant information, and establishing an ad hoc network (EFSA, 2009; VWA et al., 2006). The definition of an “emerging risk” currently in use in EFSA is that developed by the Scientific Committee in 2007: “an emerging risk to human, animal and/or plant health is understood as a risk resulting from a newly identified hazard to which a significant exposure may occur, or from an unexpected new or increased significant exposure and/or susceptibility to a known hazard”(EFSA, 2007). The Colloquium on Emerging Risks, held in Parma last October, brought together international experts from different sectors for an open scientific debate on four main topics related to emerging risks, namely: (i) available methods to identify new hazards and/or exposures and assess emerging risks; (ii) strategic sources of information for data collection; (iii) identification of drivers of change as underlying causes of emerging risks; (iv) opportunities for the establishment of an international network to communicate on emerging risks to risk managers and policy makers. The outcome of this discussion provides practical inputs for developing of the EFSA’s methodological framework for assessing emerging risks. As the emergence of new risks, including those in the food chain, may depend on a variety of different factors and circumstances, which may be very difficult to predict, the systematic identification of new hazards and assessment of emerging risks is a process involving the gathering and evaluation of large amounts of information from different sources, including wide expert consultations, with the aim
of supporting decision-makers on potential future threats. Moreover, as data leading to the identification of new hazards and/or exposures are likely to be characterised by considerable limitations and uncertainties, the assessment of emerging risks requires a structured intelligence approach, based on a high level of organization and multidisciplinary expertise in a broad range of sectors. Principles and methods for identifying new hazards and/or exposures and assess emerging risks have been formalised mainly in the context of “Foresight”. Foresight is a well-established process, rarely applied to food safety, that encompasses a broad range of intelligence activities aimed at enhancing future oriented thinking for strategic planning and policy makers (Popper, 2008). Qualitative and quantitative methods are available to generate, elicit, synthesise and filter information at different stages of the process (e.g. expert panels, trend analysis, Delphi studies, literature reviews, horizon and internet scanning, scenario building among others). The selection of the most appropriate set of methods should be done by weighing a set of criteria, including their ability to gather and filter information, the time anticipation horizons, the outputs expected by the policy makers, the expertise and resources available. Lastly, but not of minor importance, the validation of the efficacy of a system for the identification of emerging risks is a challenging issue to be seriously considered by taking into account not only the evaluation of the ability of the system to identify new and re-emerging risks earlier than traditional systems, but also the usefulness of other types of outputs, such as the establishment of networks, the generation of new knowledge and new paradigms, and the fostering of innovation and technologies. The outcome of the discussion on strategic sources of information highlighted a number of issues of potential interest. The remit of EFSA is extremely broad, which makes it challenging to be able to monitor effectively all relevant hazards possibly coming from biological, chemical, and physical agents as well as human behaviour factors (e.g. excessive or unbalanced nutrition). In order to clarify what types of sources (e.g. surveillance data, results from recent research projects, online media reports) to look for and which to monitor, clear targeted issues/topics should be first identified. Once the data on potential new hazards have been collected, connecting them in a realistic context is crucial to define plausible future scenarios. For this scope the importance of a multidisciplinary approach, involving the stakeholders at national and international level can not be overemphasized. With reference to data collection, the types of data of potential interest are various, ranging from structured and unstructured to qualitative and quantitative information. For this purpose communication and networking is essential to avoid duplication of efforts. Similarly, sources of information are extremely variable. They range from human and animal surveillance data, to recent development from research, but also from information collected by the industry from post-marketing surveillance, to
A. Altieri et al. / Trends in Food Science & Technology 22 (2011) 249e252
open source information available from the media, among others. With reference to possible strategies and tools to facilitate data collection, it has been suggested to establish multilateral agreements to share information with the EU Member States and inter-governmental agencies, but also to develop and customise web-scanning tools, and to establish reward research programs specifically designed for the identification of emerging risks. With reference to the establishment of a European network dedicated to emerging risks, it was noted that a number of competent bodies addressing this issue, along with some network systems designed to identify emerging risks in different sectors including food, already exist. The challenge is, therefore, to harmonise terminology and procedures and to develop a network system involving key partners from all interested European, (inter-)national and main Third Countries institutions and organizations, and stakeholders, to share relevant information on emerging risks in real time. To such an end, it will be crucial that networks are flexible, involving, when appropriate, also actors from outside the food chain. In order to avoid overload of information, it was considered preferable to share intelligence and selected signals already identified rather than raw data to be analysed. According to the EC Regulation 178/2002, EFSA has a statutory obligation to communicate on food and feed emerging risks at a European level. When communicating on emerging risks, a careful consideration of the terminology used is warranted to avoid unnecessary scares associated with risk overestimation or a lack of response due to a risk under evaluation. The emerging risks to be transmitted should be carefully selected and clearly explained, avoiding overload of information. Similarly, the terminology used to communicate on emerging risks should be carefully weighted. For example, the use of the word “risk” may trigger more concern than appropriate and the term “emerging issue” may be useful to discriminate between early signals and those issues confirmed to be of concern. An emerging issue may be defined as one that has very recently been identified and for which the available data to conduct a risk assessment is very limited (Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR), 2009). Moreover, the communication should clearly address and be proportionate to the type of issues (e.g. need for immediate action, potential magnitude of the impact, uncertainties entailed). The potential usefulness of a particular method of expert elicitation was discussed in one of the working groups to put into perspective the identification of “drivers of change” as underlying causes of emerging risks in food safety. Drivers have been defined as issues shaping the development of a society, organisation, industry, research area, or technology (often classified in categories such as Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, i.e. STEEP). One important characteristic of drivers is that they may act as modifiers of effect on the onset of emerging
251
risks, namely they can either amplify or attenuate the magnitude or frequency of risks arising from various sources. The participants were asked to establish which drivers of change they would consider the most important with regards to emerging risks in food and feed safety, identify the most plausible consequences of these drivers on food and feed safety, according to likelihood and severity. This scenario building exercise provided useful feedback on how to facilitate interactions between multiple actors in situations where quantitative empirical data are lacking, and expert judgement from a broad range of domains is needed. The European Union has reached over the last decade unprecedented high levels of food safety, introducing the "farm to fork" approach, strict new laws on food safety covering the entire European Union, and establishing EFSA, an independent body responsible for giving scientific advice and information on risks associated with the food chain. Whilst EFSA appears to be well equipped to deal with emerging risks, procedures in this area need to be well defined in order to avoid duplication in the work of the risk assessor and that of the risk manager, and ensure coherence of the data collection strategy. The need for balanced and proportionate assessments of emerging risk clearly emerged from the discussion. The main objective of a system to identify new hazards and/ or exposures and assess emerging risks from a risk management perspective is prevention, without creating false expectations or unjustified scares among the members of the public. It is essential that all those possibly involved receive clear, consistent and up-to-date information about risk situations, which could be changing rapidly. When provided with accurate and useful information, everybody is better equipped to make informed decisions. Tackling risks eperceived, ongoing or emerging is one of the greatest challenges we face. Yet they become more manageable if the right tools, mechanisms and the most up-to-date scientific advice are in place. The outcome of the colloquium provided EFSA with a set of useful recommendations on future steps: i) considering the very large remit of EFSA, clear targeted issues/topics should be agreed prior to the selection of strategic sources of information to be monitored and EFSA should communicate this clearly to avoid unrealistic expectations; ii) to prioritise most suitable data sources for data collection, EFSA should fully benefit from the existing knowledge networks and databases available internally, and establish multilateral agreements with EU Member States, selected Third Countries and Inter-governmental and International Agencies to share information; iii) when interpreting and filtering data gathered, a multidisciplinary approach is strongly advisable in order to interconnect data in a broad context; iv) the use of creative methods (e.g. scenarios building) in combination with quantitative empirical data and expert
252
A. Altieri et al. / Trends in Food Science & Technology 22 (2011) 249e252
judgement should be further explored to produce new original information on emerging risks; v) effective and balanced communication approaches with risk managers on emerging risks should be developed, avoiding overload of information and possible misunderstandings. Finally, it was very reassuring to learn that indeed EFSA is already anticipating most of the following steps by setting up different networks, databases and tools. The proceedings of the meeting will be published as Colloquium 15th on “Emerging Risks in Food, from Identification to Communication” of the EFSA Science Colloquia series. Details can also be found at http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/ scpublications/colloquiareports.htm/. Disclaimer The views or positions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent in legal terms the official position of the European Food Safety Authority. The European Food Safety Authority assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear. Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank Vanhoorde R., Florin M.V., O’Brien J., Popper R., and Marvin H. for their excellent presentations at the opening session; Ruttas-Kuttim R., Leemhuis C., Donohoe T., and Noteborn H. for having done the challenging job as rapporteur of the discussion groups; and Popper R., Uyttendaele M., De Marchi B., and Rowe G. for skilfully chairing the discussion groups.
References EC, European Commission (2002). REGULATION (EC) No 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety. Official Journal L 031, 01/02/2002 P. 0001-0024. EFSA, European Food Safety Authority (2007). Definition and description of “emerging risks” within the EFSA’s mandate. http://www.efsa. europa.eu/en/scdocs/doc/sc_definition_emerging_risks_en.pdf EFSA, European Food Safety Authority (2009). Report of the EFSA Scientific Cooperation (ESCO) Working Group on Emerging Risks. EFSA Technical Report, 224,1e33. http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/ escoemrisk/documents/escoemriskreport.pdf Havelaar, A. H., Brul, S., de Jong, A., de Jonge, R., Zwietering, M. H., & Ter Kuile, B. H. (2010). Future challenges to microbial food safety. Int J Food Microbiol, 139(Suppl. 1), S79eS94. King, D. A., & Thomas, S. M. (2007). Science and government. Taking science out of the boxeforesight recast. Science, 316, 1701e1702. Kocharov, A. (2010). EFSA and identification of emerging risks. European Food and Feed Law Review, 3, 144e155. Popper, R. (2008). Foresight Methodology. In: Georghiou, L., Cassingena, J., Keenan, Popper, R. (Eds.), The Handbook of Technology Foresight, Edward Elgar, Aldershot. Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR, 2009). Emerging issues and the role of the SCENIHR. Position paper. http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_risk/committees/04_ scenihr/docs/scenihr_s_01.pdf VWA (2006). Report of the EFSA Service Contract EFSA/ SC/Tender/01/2004. Forming a Global System for Identifying Food-Related Emerging Risks - EMRISK, coordinated by the Ditch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (VWA). http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/supporting/pub/224r.htm (accessed March 2011).