Tolerable levels of risk in food allergy

An international symposium "Frontiers in Food Allergy Risk Assessment" was held in Nice in October 2010. Over 100 stakeholders (regulators, food industry, clinical researchers and patients) attended to participate in discussions on the definition of a tolerable level of risk with regard to allergic reactions to food. A report of the workshop has recently been published.

Approaches to minimise the impact of food allergy on public health are now a global priority, and organisations around the world are each working to address the issue from a number of different approaches. With this in mind, EuroPrevall partnered with ILSI Europe, the UK Food Standards Agency, FARRP and the HESI PATC (USA) to host a symposium with global reach. The symposium provided a forum in which to assess the completeness of the current knowledge base and approaches being taken to develop evidence-based risk assessment for allergenic foods.

The workshop report provides an overview of the presentations and comments made during the discussion sessions. The report can be freely downloaded in pdf format from the ILSI website or below this article.

Coinciding with the publication of the workshop report is the peer-reviewed paper "Can we define a tolerable level of risk in food allergy? Report from a EuroPrevall/UK Food Standards Agency workshop."

This paper highlights a consensus reached by workshop participants that zero risk was not a realistic option. Food allergen management practices would be improved if action levels for allergen cross-contact could be agreed upon.

In suggesting ways to move forward, two "concrete actions" were tabled in the workshop: (1) Action levels should be derived from the data currently available. Different scenarios should be examined and further developed in an iterative process. On the basis of this work, a tolerable level of risk should be proposed. (2) 'One-dose' clinical trial with a low challenge dose should be performed in multiple centres to provide additional information about the general applicability of dose-distribution models and help validate the threshold levels derived.

Reference: Madsen et al. 2011. Clinical & Experimental Allergy. Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2222.2011.03868.x

Downloads: ILSI Europe Report Series – Frontiers in Food Allergen Risk Assessment [PDF 454 KB]