Food Sweeteners:
EFSA’s Panel on Food additives and nutrient sources added to food (ANS) will discuss two recent studies on artificial sweeteners at its next meeting on 1-3 February 2011 when it will assess whether any further scientific work is required. One concerns a study of the Ramazzini Institute on the potential carcinogenicity of aspartame (Morando Soffritti, Wiley-Liss, 2010), and the other examines the association between intakes of sugar sweetened and artificially sweetened soft drinks and preterm delivery (Thorhallur I Halldorsoon, 2010).
Food Consumption Database:
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published an overview of its first Comprehensive Food Consumption Database, a new source of information on food consumption in the European Union, containing detailed data for a number of EU countries. The new database will play a key role in the evaluation of the risks related to possible hazards in food in the EU and will allow more precise estimates of consumers’ exposure to such hazards, a fundamental step in EFSA’s risk assessment work.
The database, which has been developed in close cooperation with EU Member States, will also be relevant in future for other fields of EFSA’s work, such as the assessment of nutrient intakes of the EU population. The overview includes guidance on how summary statistics in the database can be used by food safety and public health experts both at national and EU level.
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/datex/datexfooddb.htm