Monday, 9 December 2024 @ 10.30am (FSAI offices)
Members Present
- Martin Cormican (Chair) (MC)
- Andrew Flanagan (AF)
- Alan Kelly (AK)
- Geraldine Duffy (GD)
- Ita Kinahan (IK)
- Lois O’Connor (LOC)
- Mark Fenelon (MF)
- Montserrat Gutierrez (MG)
- Séamus Fanning (SF)
FSAI Staff Present
- Wayne Anderson (WA)
- Karl McDonald (KMcD)
- Mary Flynn (MFl)
- Rob Phillips (RP)
- Joe Hannon (JH)
- Judith Giles (JG)
Apologies
- Ann Marie Part (AMP)
- Anne Molloy (AM)
- Dagmar Stengel (DS)
- Dolores O’Riordan (DOR)
- Kevin Cashman (KC)
1. Disclosures of Interest
The Chair welcomed the members to the meeting. There were no disclosures of interest.
2. Matters Arising from the Meeting Minutes of 14 October 2024
The timetable for completion of Scientific Committee work for 2025 was reviewed. There are six work projects for completion, and it was agreed that more meetings or topic specific meetings will be held next year, if required, to support completion of these projects.
3. Proposed Biomarkers List from Chemical Safety Subcommittee
AF noted that the TDS & Biomarkers WG and the Chemical Safety Subcommittee both met in November and signed off on the proposed Biomarkers List. He thanked the members and FSAI staff for their work on the list.
The biomarkers work was carried out to address Q3 in the Request for Advice (RfA) on the Total Diet Study and Biomarkers. JH took the committee through the document which provides some background information to the work, an approach for determining a suitable list of biomarkers and the actual criteria used to draft the proposed list. The criteria included relevance of the biomarker to food and beverages, and the availability of a health based guidance value (HBGV) or human biomonitoring (HBM) value to guide risk assessments.
The document was discussed and some changes agreed to the detail of the text.
The Scientific Committee agreed the document in principle, subject to the changes discussed at the meeting being made. The documents will be updated as soon as possible and circulated for final review in January. When circulated, members agreed to a one week period for any outstanding comments and, at the end of that time, the document is approved if no new issues are raised. The Chair thanked everyone for their input.
Actions:
- JH to update the biomarkers document with the changes agreed and circulate to the members in January.
4. Update from Chemical Safety Subcommittee
Dioxins WG
KMcD and AF are reviewing the draft dioxins report. There are several references that need to be checked; some of the detail is not specific to Ireland and will be removed; and the biosolids section will be updated with new information. The draft report will also be restructured to ensure it answers the RfA. Once the review is completed, FSAI will meet with AF. A final draft report will be circulated to the WG, subcommittee and Scientific Committee in Q1 2025.
5. Update from PHN Subcommittee
There was a meeting of the PHN Subcommittee, together with its Working Group on Healthy Eating Guidelines (HEG), on 5 November 2024. The progress in relation to the work plan for the HEG adolescents report was reviewed. This included an update on the diet modelling being undertaken by the PHN team at FSAI, with modelling data on adolescent omnivore boys shared and discussed at the meeting. This raised some points for further consideration e.g., around dietary fibre and iron intakes by boys. The HEG WG met on 4 December, following some additional modelling by the PHN team at FSAI. The feedback from these meetings has been extremely useful to the PHN team and thus one additional HEG working group meeting has been arranged for next week.
The PHN Subcommittee will have an outline draft report to share with the Scientific Committee in Q1 2025. As mentioned previously, this will not have all the modelling complete but will include some modelling data, as well as other key sections of the report, to give the Scientific Committee a sense of the flow and architecture of the draft report due later in 2025.
There was some discussion on the work.
- Iron deficiency is an issue of concern. Discussion included reference to discussions at EU level on the related regulation of fortification of foods with iron.
- Sustainability principles have been drafted. It was agreed that this Committee will continue to focus on food safety and that progress on sustainability must be in the context of ensuring that food is safe. The Chair referenced that this is consistent with FSAI’s new Strategy.
- MF referred to an emerging classification of food based on nutrient density as relevant to sustainability.
6. Update from Biological Safety Subcommittee
Risk Ranking of Microbiological Hazards
GD thanked the members for their comments on the risk ranking report and confirmed that good progress is being made on this work.
- The Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) have been calculated for the hazards in the ECDC’s BCoDE. The DALYs for the hazards not in the BCoDE have been calculated using R Project and have been sent to Public Health colleagues for review.
- The work to estimate the total burden of illness attributed to food is also progressing. 17 experts have agreed to participate in the expert elicitation exercise using a two-round Delphi approach. An electronic questionnaire will be sent out this week and participants have until mid-January to complete it. An in-person meeting of the group will then be arranged.
- The Monte Carlo software to rank the risks is being trialled at present.
Hepatitis E in Pigs and Pigmeat WG
GD noted that progress on this has been limited to date. The proposed timeline for the work will be checked and this will be discussed at the next meeting.
7. Update from Food Hygiene Rating Systems Subcommittee
The Chair reminded the members that the Food Safety Consultative Council (FSCC) is also doing some work on food hygiene rating systems. It was agreed that it would be of value for the FSCC Chair and their FHRS Subgroup Chair to attend part of a Scientific Committee meeting next year if they are available and a suitable date can be agreed.
RP confirmed that two meetings of the subcommittee have been held with presentations and evidence presented by FSA NI staff on their scheme. All schemes are not the same and are employed differently in various jurisdictions. More information is needed on how efficacy is measured. The work plan has been revised and other aspects such as legal issues will need to be considered. More views and information will be sought from other countries. A primer paper was prepared by research fellow Kristin Anderson, PhD, and will be circulated.
The Chair reminded the members that the scope of the work is to provide evidence and options in relation to FHRS rather than to make a specific recommendation.
Actions:
- MC to invite the FSCC Chair and FHRS Subgroup Chair to attend a meeting or part of a meeting next year.
- RP to circulate Kirstin Anderson’s paper to Scientific Committee members.
8. Work Plan Update
The work plan was updated to account for the publication of reports this year. WA noted that the Probiotics report and Analytical Methods report were published in the EFSA FRAE journal recently.
9. Correspondence
There was no correspondence received.
10. AOB
There was no other business discussed.
11. Date of Next Meeting
The date for the next meeting will be confirmed in the New Year. The Chair thanked everyone for all their work this year and wished them a Happy Christmas.