COT previous discussions

JECFA/JMPR update of Chapter 5, EHC 240 (2020)

34.          The COT were provided a summary of chapter 5 (dose-response assessment and derivation of health-based guidance values) of the “principles and methods for the risk assessment of chemicals in food, Environmental Health Criteria 240” (EHC 240) guidance document that was released by the World Health Organisation for public consultation (TOX/2020/01). Members of the Committee were invited to comment on the draft update.

35.          Potential discrepancies between the descriptions of the benchmark dose approach and that by the Environmental Protection Agency were addressed.

36.          Comparisons were made between the flow chart presented in Figure 1 of TOX/2020/01 and that used by EFSA (Figure 8 in 2017 Guidance); it was noted that the figures serve slightly different purposes and that the flow chart used by EFSA provides more detailed information on the conduct of dose-response modelling.

37.          The Committee concluded that the methodologies of the updated draft chapter and the previous version were very similar, and the main differences were in the structure and detail of the chapter.

Updated EFSA guidance on the Benchmark Dose Approach (2022)

38.    In March 2022, The Committee was informed of a meeting held between interested COT, COC and COM Members to discuss the recently published draft updated EFSA guidance on the Benchmark Dose Approach; the most notable change being a move to use a Bayesian rather than frequentist approach in the modelling.

39.    In the discussion it was highlighted that the guidance on modelling took more account of statistical issues, rather than the underlying biology. It was noted that the benchmark dose was considered by EFSA to be scientifically more advanced than the NOAEL/LOAEL approach.