Source: European Parliament
Question for written answer E-000633/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Anja Hazekamp (The Left)
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently opened a public consultation on new genomic techniques (NGTs) applied to animals. To prepare its draft opinion, EFSA commissioned a report by Alison Van Eenennaam. This report by Van Eenennaam is mentioned 17 times in EFSA’s draft opinion. However, Van Eenennaam’s capacity to act independently and in the public interest is questionable.
Van Eenennaam filed patents on transgenic plants with Monsanto. Later, her interest shifted to genetically engineered animals. She is named as an inventor on several patent applications on NGT animals, including WO2023196818 and WO2023235879. She therefore has commercial interests in this topic.
She was also involved in public relations for the well-known case of NGT hornless cattle, where unintentionally, complete DNA fragments from bacteria were inserted that would have been able to confer resistance to antibiotics. This case evidences the need to take into account the unintended effects caused by NGT processes. However, this finding was not mentioned in the Van Eenennaam report.
- 1.Does the Commission consider Van Eenennaam to be an independent expert who may contribute to EFSA’s opinions on the topic of NGT animals?
- 2.Given these conflicts of interest, can the commissioned report still feature in EFSA’s work, or should EFSA revise its work and update its conflicts of interest policies to avoid similar situations, in the future?
Submitted: 11.2.2025