Public Consultation on the draft update of the guidance of the Scientific Committee on the use of the benchmark dose approach in risk assessment

EFSA's Scientific Committee has launched an open consultation on a draft update of its guidance on the use of the benchmark dose (BMD) approach in risk assessment. This update confirms that the BMD approach is a scientifically more advanced method compared to the NOAEL approach for deriving a Reference Point (RP), and therefore recommends that the BMD approach, and more specifically model averaging, is used for deriving a Reference Point from the critical dose-response data to establish health-based guidance values and margins of exposure. Because sections 2.1 to 2.4 of the document were only subject to minor editorials, this consultation focusses on section 2.5 and the two appendices. Possibility is given to comment on the other sections if deemed necessary.

Interested parties are invited to submit written comments by 20 September 2016. Please use the electronic template provided to submit comments and refer to the line and page numbers. Kindly note that after 2 hours of non‑activity your working session will expire and comments submitted after that time will not be recorded and transmitted. Therefore, if the page is left inactive for more than 2 hours, please re-open it from the link before restarting to comment. If you would like to submit additional data to support your comments or file send an email to: SCER.PublicConsult.74 [at] efsa.europa.eu (SCER[dot]PublicConsult[dot]74[at]efsa[dot]europa[dot]eu). Please note that comments will not be considered if they:

• are submitted after the closing date of the public consultation 
• are presented in any form other than what is provided for in the instructions and template
• are not related to the contents of the document
• contain complaints against institutions, personal accusations, irrelevant or offensive statements or material
• are related to policy or risk management aspects, which is out of the scope of EFSA's activity.

EFSA will assess all comments from interested parties which are submitted in line with the criteria above. The comments will be further considered by the relevant EFSA Panel and taken into consideration if found to be relevant.

All comments submitted will be published. Comments submitted by individuals in a personal capacity will be presented anonymously. Comments submitted formally on behalf of an organisation will appear with the name of the organisation.