Meeting

Update on the work of other Scientific Advisory Committees- May 2022

TOX/2021/33

Last updated: 22 January 2025

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The Chair presented a summary of the Science Council’s activity over the last 6 months.
The FSA provided an update on the Annual Science report to the FSA Board and the development of key performance indicators (KPIs) for FSA science.
The CSA updated the Council on his recent activity and discussions (including the Government spending review, gene editing food, food labelling and alternative proteins).
An update on progress of Working Group 6 on Food Safety and Net Zero Carbon (including the workshop on 18 November).
Updates from Science Council members attending Scientific Advisory Committees (SACs).

Next open meeting: 23 June 2022.

Chair: Professor Sandy Thomas

Secretariat: sciencecouncil@food.gov.uk

Website: science-council.food.gov.uk

Advisory Committee for Social Science (ACSS)

Updated: April 2022.

Last meeting: 26th Jan 2022 (8th plenary, open session).

Key agenda items:

FSA updated on key projects within the Analytics Unit, including new work programmes: Behavioural Trials and Wider Consumer interests.
Updates on working group activity.
A proposal for an economics working group was discussed.
Update from Prof. Sandy Thomas on working group outputs from the Science Council, and recruitment.
Strategy team presented the emerging FSA strategy and the ACSS secretariat reported an initial assessment of how well ACSS expertise, and the FSA social science research plan, address key strategy topics.

Minutes and papers are available on the website.

Working group highlights:

The Climate Change and Consumer Behaviour working group held a a second stage workshop with stakeholders in February, as part of their work exploring the impact of changes in consumer behaviour motivated by climate change concerns (a summary of this work is available: 7.6_ACSS_Climate Change and Consumer Behaviour_Workshop Summary (DRAFT).pdf.
The Assurance working group have commissioned a piece of work to develop a ‘good science’ quality assurance toolkit to support the production of high-quality research.
The Kitchen Life 2 working group continues to support the research project Kitchen Life 2.
Membership and chair of the working group to support the Wider Consumer Interests has been decided. Members are now working on developing terms of reference for the group and scoping possible activity/input.
Terms of reference for a new working group supporting the economics function in the FSA analytics unit, are under development.

The next open meeting of the ACSS will be 20th July 2022.

Chair: Professor Susan Michie

Secretariat: acss@food.gov.uk

Website: acss.food.gov.uk

Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP)

Updated: April 2022.

Last meeting: 30 March 2022.

The Chair and Secretariat were involved in new members recruitment prior to the meeting. Minutes for the 151th meeting were agreed.

Dossiers on Barley Protein and on Cetylated fatty acids were removed from the agenda, to be presented in the following meeting instead; these are the first novel food dossiers to reach the stage of initial draft opinion in the new UK assessment process, requiring careful consideration of the approach and detail levels.
One traditional food dossier on Bambara Ground Nut was assessed; there were further considerations of what is not requested from the guideline while necessary for risk assessment, and what would be considered as reasoned safety objections.
The Mung Bean protein dossier returned for assessment.
The formation of a new subgroup of ACNFP and COT to examine cross-cutting issues on CBD was formally agreed (reserved business).
A new dossier on extracted CBD and a returning dossier on synthetic CBD (reserved business) were also examined.
The committee considered a work timeline on food and feed made from or of Precision Bred Organisms (PBO, formerly known as Genome Edited Organisms – GEO) suggested by FSA Policy for the upcoming ACNFP GM/GE subgroup (reserved business).

Next meeting: 8th June 2022.

Chair: Dr Camilla Alexander-White

Secretariat: acnfp@food.gov.uk

Website: acnfp.food.gov.uk

Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF)

Updated: 15 February 2022.

The Committee’s last meeting was on 09 February 2022. The issues they considered include:

An information paper summarising action taken on points arising from the minutes of previous meetings Matters arising.

A presentation on the FSA’s path-safe project PATH-SAFE: Tracking Foodborne Pathogens and Antimicrobial Resistance Microbes.

FSA’s ongoing Kitchen Life 2 project FSA's Kitchen Life 2 Project.

The work of the committee over the years and a forward look on future work areas 100th Meeting of the ACMSF - Reflections.

The UKFSR focussing on the chapter related to foodborne disease and incidents UK Food Security Report 2021.

FSA surveys on frozen breaded/battered chicken products. This was considered in closed session.

Information papers sent to members include:

ACMSF Work plan
Update from other Committees
Items of interest from the literature
Food and You Survey - Wave 3
Botulism in cattle, sheep and goats literature update (available on request).

Next meeting: 23rd June 2022.

Chair: Professor Bill Keevil

Secretariat: acmsf@food.gov.uk

Website: acmsf.food.gov.uk

Advisory Committee on Animal Feeding stuffs (ACAF)

Last meeting: 27th June 2019.

Next meeting: No dates set for 2021 meeting Epidemiology of F gs – Committee under review.

Secretariat: acaf@food.gov.uk

Website: acaf.food.gov.uk

Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT)

Updated: April 2022.

Last meeting: 29th March 2022.

Topics discussed included:

At their March meeting the Committee discussed items including the potential risk to human health of turmeric and curcumin supplements, potential approaches to mixture risk assessment for future UK REACH assessments and an updated discussion paper on the bioavailability of nicotine and other ingredients from the use of oral nicotine pouches and the first draft of a statement on the effects of cadmium on  maternal health. The Committee continued work on draft statements considering the effects of excess Vitamin A in the maternal diet and on the risk assessment of cow’s milk in children aged 1 to 5 years, in the context of the plant-based drinks evaluations.

Next meeting: 10th May 2022.

Chair: Professor Alan Boobis

Secretariat: cot@food.gov.uk

Website: cot.food.gov.uk

Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment 

(COC) 

Updated: April 2022.

Last meeting:  2 March 2022.

Topics on the agenda included:

Hydroxyanthracene derivatives in supplements.
Horizon scanning.
Annual report.
Update to guidance statements including biomarkers, interpretation of cancer risk characterisation and alternative approaches.

Next meeting:  21 July 2022.

Further meetings: 17 November 2022.

Chair: Professor David Harrison 

Secretariat:  COC@phe.gov.uk 

Website:  committee-on-carcinogenicity-of-chemicals-in-food-consumer-products-and-the-environment-coc   

The Committee on Mutagenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COM)

Updated: April 2022.

Last meeting:  1 March 2022.

Topics discussed included:  

 Review of EFSA opinion on titanium dioxide.
Hydroxyanthracene derivatives in supplements.
Horizon scanning.
BPA
Smoke flavourings.
Draft COC guidance statement “The Use of Biomarkers in Carcinogenic Risk Assessment.
Draft COC, COM and COT document “How do the Committees evaluate the relevance and reliability of data when assessing a chemical of concern?”