The Food Allergy Forum was held in Amsterdam from April 1st to April 3rd, 2019. The conference covered a range of clinical, regulatory and analytical aspects.
One of the very interesting presentations was given by Paul Turner from Imperial College London. He described that many allergy sufferers perceive that hospitalization due to allergic reaction is a frequent event. A study by Umasunthar et al. shows that the actual frequency is in the same range as the frequency of emergency room admission due to a motor vehicle accident.
Stefan Ronsmann from Coca-Cola described the challenges of global food manufacturers dealing with allergens in the supply chain and compliance with the different national (regional) regulations. He also put allergen safety issue in perspective of health risks from pathogen contamination, which affect a much wider range of the populations. At the end of his presentation, he asked the question: “What is safe?”, and offered two alternatives:
- Is it about further reducing all residual uncertainties at the risk assessment state, before taking any risk management action (allergens)
Or - Can one accept certain level of residual risk, once risk is properly quantified and agreed upon, adopt a risk management level that can guide food producers in their continuous operational improvement process such as driving consumer risk down.
He finished by asking if we have reached a stage where generally endorsed levels of food allergens (as endorsed by risk management) can be agreed upon, e.g. suggested VITAL reference doses. The EFSA representative at the meeting did not comment. North American regulators, when asked why we still do not have threshold levels in regulations, took the stance that at this point in time it may be better to not have thresholds for food allergens than having some.
Cesare Varallo from Foodlawlatest.com explained that not having thresholds has led to an untenable situation in Europe. Scientific committees from different member countries (Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium) suggested reference doses which differed by as much as 100 times for egg and milk (we reported already about this back in March 2018). In the interview, Cesare stated that not having threshold will impact adversely consumers and food manufacturers alike.
On the analytical side, Markus Lacorn from r-Biopharm explained how much work and diligence goes into designing and validating ELISA assays before they reach the market.
What was noticeable was that enforcement authorities are continuously moving from single-target allergens assays (e.g. test for milk) to multiplex assays, where a large number of allergens can be tested for in the same analysis. Stefano Luccioli from US-FDA made reference to the XMAP developments of the FDA group at Colleage Park, and René Becker from the German Federal Agency for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) highlighted the validation efforts of the newly-formed working group for mass-spectrometry analysis of food allergens and food fraud.
Bert Popping at FOCOS – Food Consulting Strategically put these developments into perspective for food manufacturers. He mentioned that, after validation of the previously mentioned assays by the competent authorities, it is likely that samples taken by inspectors will be analyzed for a much wider range of allergens potentially present. Bert proposed that food manufacturer should review their analytical strategy for food allergens in light of these developments. He also mentioned the development of numerous, pocket-sized devices for consumers, which can test for food allergens.
Gina Ross (WUR), Francisco Lourenco-Dias (NIMA), Joe Baumert (University of Nebraska – Lincoln) and Sabine Schnadt from the German Allergy and Asthma Patient Group discussed how these pocket-sized devices have been validated and where those devices can help consumers, as well as where the limitations of such devices are.
Overall, the conference provided a very good overview, not only with regards to allergy assessment for novel foods, but also which challenges regulators and food manufacturers currently face and how this will change in the future. If you have missed this conference, you may wish to keep an eye out for the next Food Allergy Forum in 2021.
