Outcome of the public consultation on the draft guidance on allergenicity assessment of genetically modified plants

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) carried out a public consultation to collect input from the scientific community and all interested parties on the draft guidance on allergenicity assessment of genetically modified plants. The draft guidance document was prepared by the Allergenicity Working Group of the EFSA Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO Panel) and endorsed by the Panel for public consultation at its plenary meeting on 26 July 2016. EFSA received approximately 200 comments on the draft guidance from 25 interested parties. As part of EFSA’s public consultation, an EFSA workshop at an initial stage of the process as well as an EFSA info session meeting were held in Brussels on 17 June 2015 and in Parma on 23rd November 2016, respectively. In addition, a pilot “Focus group” project involving several stakeholder groups closely followed the development of the document during its entire lifetime. The current report summarises the outcome of the public consultation, and includes a brief description of the comments received and how the comments were addressed. EFSA and its GMO Panel wish to thank all stakeholders and the general public for their contributions. The GMO Panel prepared an updated version of the guidance taking into account the comments received. The guidance document was adopted at the GMO Plenary meeting on 18 May 2017, and is published in the EFSA Journal.