Food chief tasked with streamlining Europe’s safety system

Date: 11/09/03

Geoffrey Podger, left, is head of one of the EU's youngest organizations, the European Food Safety Authority. Here he talks to Karen Carstens about his plans for EFSA, its limitations and the overriding appliance of science

IF A major food scare were to suddenly sweep Europe, Geoffrey Podger would be sorely tested.

But the ebullient Englishman, who traded in his chief executive post at the London-based Food Standards Agency to take over at the helm of the fledgling European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) last February, says he and his current staff of almost 50 would do their utmost to rise to the challenge.

In the process, an EU-wide network of top scientists tasked with providing speedy and accurate risk-assessment advice would also spring into action.

Yet what could be viewed as the authority's current weakness - 200-300 full-time, on-site staff are expected to be recruited by the end of 2005 - is also its strength, according to Podger.

"What we're trying to do no one has done before," he says. "Therefore there's no recipe."

He sees benefits in "gradually building up" EFSA over a three-year period, notably in maintaining as much flexibility as possible in fine-tuning the independent advisory body to meet the needs of European consumers.

"One of the problems that government bodies have is that they are always very reluctant to admit they are experimenting ... to say 'perhaps we ought to change course in light of experience'.

"But in my view there's nothing wrong with this at all - we need to keep some flexibility because we're not quite sure what volumes of work are going to arrive in which areas and from where."

Moreover, "we're still discussing with the national [food safety] authorities exactly how the new system is to work in regard to them" which makes such an interim build-up phase "quite useful".

Podger's sole cause for concern is that the authority's full-time staff - currently based in Brussels pending a decision between several squabbling member states on a final location - would be severely challenged in the event of a BSE-style catastrophe.

"The only danger to us is, clearly, that if we were to have a major food crisis before we were at full strength, then inevitably we would be quite tested.

"We would be more able with a staff of 300 to deal with a major food crisis than with a staff of 45.

But that doesn't alter the fact that if one breaks out tomorrow then there is plenty we can do."

Responding to sudden food crises, however, will comprise only a fraction of the authority's overall workload which, as Podger points out, is still difficult to gauge.

One area that will surely yield a steady flow of inquiries is pesticides and contaminants: "There is a need to re-evaluate substances that have been on the market for some time, therefore there is just a predetermined, large, ongoing workload in this area."

Requests may also start pouring in on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), something Podger says could happen over the next few months, even before the de facto EU-wide moratorium on allowing new GM products to enter the Union is lifted. (This is widely anticipated by sometime next year.)

Since January, member states have funnelled 23 applications for cultivation and distribution rights for new products into the European Commission's GM approvals pipeline, and more are expected. Podger predicts a slew of requests for scientific advice from the EFSA could arise as a result.

So far, however, only one advisory opinion has been issued on a GM-related issue. In July, the EFSA concluded there was "no new scientific evidence" to justify the banning of certain GMOs in the province of Upper Austria, whose regional government had asked the Commission for permission to create specific "GMO-free agricultural areas".

Based on the authority's conclusions, the Commission turned down the Austrian application last week (2 September).

But Podger says this one opinion is not necessarily indicative of a pro-GMO stance.

"What we are determined to do here at EFSA is to give, without fear or favour, the best and most objective science we can on GMOs and we're certainly neither 'pro-GMO' nor 'anti-GMO' - that is not our function at all."

Instead, it is "to look at the science objectively, get high-quality people from throughout the EU working on it and then put out that information and pass it on to the risk managers."

The Commission remains the risk manager, deciding what to do with the information provided by the EFSA.

The authority, meanwhile, has taken over the risk assessment and risk communication functions.

In his previous post at the UK Food Standards Agency, where he oversaw a staff of some 2,000, Podger was tasked with all three roles.

"The UK operates a very different system than, for example, France or Germany, which operate on a model like the one EFSA has."

While there are "advantages and disadvantages" to either approach, "there is a clear advantage in the model we have at EFSA in terms of separating very clearly the objective scientific analysis from the people who take the risk management decisions".

This was the aim of David Byrne, the health commissioner, in pushing for the creation of the authority in the wake of the BSE and foot-and-mouth scares.

"So you have an independent risk assessment body like us, we give our view without fear or favour and then that view is made public," says Podger.

"It is then up to the risk managers to decide what they want to do. Quite rightly the decision to do something is up to them, but of course if they choose to do something that is inconsistent with our advice, then they can find themselves publicly challenged through the European Parliament, through the democratic process, through the media."

In this manner, Podger argues, EFSA cannot be criticized as a smokescreen for politicians - or Eurocrats - who fail to respond to food scandals.

This new EU-wide food safety system should be "more foolproof than the previous system against criticism of political influence, of industry conspiring with officials behind closed doors and the rest of it.

"It's a very deliberate attempt to separate the process out and to force the risk managers to actually take decisions in the light of already published objective advice. And I think that's healthy."

Podger is careful to point out he has no intention of calling all the shots himself or keeping the authority's inner workings under wraps (albeit to the extent that sound science may still be practised).

"We have a responsibility to go out and involve our stakeholders in what we are doing. "We can't become a sort of ivory tower organization," insists Podger.

To this end, the authority is hosting a first meeting in the Belgian coastal town of Ostend next month, which aims to bring together scientists from its risk assessment panels and representatives from industry and consumer groups.

"We're going to talk to them about how they can become more involved in risk assessment, how they can become involved in risk communication, and how we can generally keep in touch with each other."

The idea is to start putting in place a machinery for an effective ongoing dialogue, and to be as approachable as possible.

Anything else would not be "acceptable in this kind of area, which is terribly sensitive, and which has huge economic interests riding on it."