NDA panellist: Angry academics would come to same conclusions if on our panel

As the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) delivers hundreds of batch five general function health claim rejections to an ever-frustrated academic and commercial community, EFSA health claims panelist Ambroise Martin, PhD, tells NutraIngredients why disgruntled researchers would come to the same conclusions as EFSA’s health claims panel, if put in the same position. It’s all about context you see…

The Professor in Nutrition and Biochemistry at the Medical school at the University of Lyon, who formerly advised the French Food Agency (ANSES) that approved both lutein-eye and cranberry-UTI claims, said the nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR) was the culprit behind the ever-widening, researcher-NDA panel divide.

“A good researcher is not by the way a good expert and reciprocally a good expert is not necessarily the best researcher in the field,” professor Martin said. “It’s quite a different thing.”

“In research you have to address questions on your own, when you are an expert you have to answer a question that is posed by somebody else and you have to answer in a specific context and for the health claims it is the context of the regulation and you cannot ignore this context.”