(Brussels, 6 December 2010) The CIAA (Confederation of the food and drink industries of the EU) welcomes the EFSA Workshop on Health Claims related to Gut Health and Immunity which took place on 2 December. It was a step in the process of providing industry with the clarity which it seeks on how to compile applications in this exciting new and emerging science, an area with significant potential public health benefits which are recognised as such by EFSA.

In the course of the workshop however it became apparent that there is still much uncertainty as to what is required by way of the scientific substantiation of such claims. The consequence of this is that there is still insufficient clarity for industry applicants and a need, therefore, to re-examine the process for dealing with claims in this and other areas of new and emerging science. Quite clearly it was not possible to resolve all outstanding issues of uncertainty during this one workshop and further exchanges on this and other types of health claims are foreseen in the future.

Speaking following the Workshop, the CIAA Director General, Mella Frewen, reaffirmed that:

"The CIAA has always supported the nutrition and health claims Regulation, but has always expressed the need for greater clarity and for more dialogue between the applicant and the risk assessor. We look forward to continuing to work with EFSA on improving the functioning of the claims approval process. In the absence of more precise guidelines for claims, one significant move towards improving the evaluation procedure could, we believe, be achieved by introducing pre-submission meetings between EFSA and the applicant, as is the case for applications made to the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA). We understand that this is being considered by EFSA but that they do not yet have the means to introduce such a process. The CIAA would support moves to give EFSA the resources needed to achieve this".

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