Approaches to risk assessment in food allergy: Report from a workshop ‘‘developing a framework for assessing the risk from allergenic foods”

A workshop was organised to investigate whether risk assessment strategies and methodologies used in classical/conventional toxicology may be used for risk assessment of allergenic foods, to discuss the advantages and limitations of different approaches and to determine the research needed to move the area forward. Three possible approaches to safety assessment and risk assessment for allergenic foods were presented and discussed: safety assessment using NOAEL/LOAEL and uncertainty factors, safety assessment using Benchmark Dose and Margin of Exposure (MoE), and risk assessment using probabilistic models.The workshop concluded that all the three approaches to safety and risk assessment of allergenic foods should continue to be considered. A particular strength of the MoE and probabilistic approaches is that they do not rely on low-dose extrapolations with its inherent issues. Probabilistic modelling is considered to be the most promising approach for use in population risk assessment (which is a particular focus for risk managers). For all approaches, further improvement of input data is desirable, particularly data on consumption patterns/food choices in food allergic consumers, data on minimum eliciting doses and data that can be used to evaluate whether the whole population at risk has been modelled accurately. Specific research topics were identified.