European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

EU agency

European Union scientific authority for food and feed risk assessment · European Union

Visit the source site · Audited 2026-10-14

Who pays for it

EFSA's 2025 budget was €163.1 million in commitment appropriations and €150.9 million in payment appropriations and EU contribution; the reviewed budget materials identified no industry fees, advertising, or product-sales funding, while a separate private-contribution amount was unverified.

Status: Supporting

EFSA receives public EU funding and has conflict rules, but it also evaluates company-submitted evidence and has faced contested study appraisals. It is cited with a second source that has a different owner and funding profile.

How SafeMomma uses it

We use EFSA opinions for the food or feed question and evidence they assessed, while checking the assessment date and corroborating consequential pregnancy or breastfeeding claims independently.

The audit

Who controls it: EFSA staff and experts on its Scientific Committee, panels, and working groups prepare scientific opinions. Applicant dossiers are assessed alongside other evidence, but submitting a dossier does not make the applicant the decision-maker.
Money: EFSA's 2025 voted budget was €163.1 million in commitment appropriations and €150.9 million in payment appropriations and EU contribution. The €35.2 million in grants and procurement was spending, not revenue; a separate private-contribution amount was unverified.
Conflict rules: A public Executive Director decision effective 28 March 2025 requires declarations and screening, including annual and oral declarations, checks, enforcement, and sanctions. It covers panels, working groups, governance, networks, grants, and procurement.
Method: EFSA publishes scientific opinions and supporting material on studies and how they inform risk assessments. In 2017, EFSA said industry-funded guideline studies in its glyphosate review were assessed through regulatory study-quality and raw-data procedures; that account is EFSA's own response.
Dates on its pages: EFSA's aspartame topic page was last reviewed 10 September 2026 and says its full assessment of aspartame E 951 remains the 2013 assessment; its 2026 reassessment concerns the salt of aspartame-acesulfame, E 962.
Political exposure: EFSA is an EU agency governed through EU institutions and law. During the glyphosate dispute, EFSA said a U.S. EPA observer's intervention did not change its appraisal or conclusion; reviewed materials showed no political order changing a scientific conclusion or removing a sampled opinion during 2015 to 2026.
Money exposure: Some regulatory studies are funded by companies seeking authorization, so independent evaluation and conflict controls matter. After the 2017 Monsanto Papers scrutiny, EFSA said the papers gave no grounds to infer improper influence and that EPA observer comments did not alter its appraisal; this does not prove influence was impossible.
Track record: The audit records a public dispute over EFSA's 2013 aspartame review: 2019 critics counted 62 of 81 negative studies as reliable and none of 73 putative positive studies, while an EFSA staff response in 2020 counted 51 of 78 negative and 21 of 37 positive studies as reliable. Critics disputed those classifications; the exchange did not establish that commercial interests changed the acceptable daily intake. No pregnancy- or breastfeeding-specific major error or correction was identified in this review.

Where this comes from

Incentive exposure describes pressure from money or politics, not whether the source is right. Funding alone does not show influence.

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