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Report2012

Outcome of the public consultation on the guidance on risk assessment for animal welfare

Sanaa, Moez; Algers, Bo; Broom, Donald; Hartung, Jörg; Keeling, Linda; Morton, David; Oltenacu, Pascal; Szücs, Endre; Thulke, H-H; Velarde, Antonio; Webster, John

Abstract

EFSA requested the Animal Health and Welfare (AHAW) Panel to develop guidance on risk assessment for animal welfare. In order to ensure that the Guidance is based on comprehensive, relevant and up-to-date information, and in line with EFSA's policy on openness and transparency, a web-based consultation on the draft scientific output at stake was launched in May 2011 for a two months period. The main objective of the consultation was to gather the widest range of views and comments from the scientific community, stakeholders and all interested parties to help finalise the scientific opinion on the Guidance on risk assessment for animal welfare. The web-consultation gave also the opportunity to inform the public about the draft guidance, the stage of development, and to receive feed back on the contents and its quality. The total number of electronic submissions of comments was 96. Relevant comments to be considered in the scientific assessment (n=78) were incorporated into the draft guidance when the working group considered their scientific basis to be valid. Some of the comments were based on the measures to be taken to improve welfare, meaning risk management, which is out of the remit of EFSA. In relation to the comments about the use of industry experts for the assessment of welfare, the independency of the experts involved in any of the EFSA activities should be guaranteed to prevent any possible bias of the scientific outputs. The document published for the public consultation was revised according to the comments received and the guidance on risk assessment for animal welfare was adopted by the AHAW Panel on 13th of December 2011[1]. This Technical Report presents the main points of discussion, comments and actions taken by EFSA.

Published in

Technical report submitted to EFSA
2012, Volume: 2012:EN-231