Between 2015 and 2020, 29 people kept getting picked to serve on safety review panels for food ingredients, and two groups of these people were only connected to two specific consulting companies.

36

Pro

0

Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

36

Community contributions welcome

36

Out of balance: conflicts of interest persist in food chemicals determined to be generally recognized as safe

Cross-Sectional Study

Human

2023 Sep 6

The study found that the same few experts kept getting hired to decide if food chemicals are safe, often working for the same consulting companies — which matches the claim that a small group tied to two firms dominated these safety panels.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Out of balance: conflicts of interest persist in food chemicals determined to be generally recognized as safe

Score: 36

DOI: 10.1186/s12940-023-01004-8

Similar Assertions

The same seven people have been making food safety decisions for over 20 years—some think they’re staying on the job because they’re getting paid, not because they’re making unbiased science-based choices.

36

0

76%

Out of all the expert panels that reviewed food safety notices for the FDA between 2015 and 2020, just seven people showed up nearly half the time—like the same few names keeping reappearing, even though there were hundreds of panels.

36

0

71%