International Life Sciences Institute

This article is part of the Foodspin project of Spinwatch.

The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is an industry-backed organisation that specialises in lobbying national and international agencies such as the US Environmental Protection Agency, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Its members include many big food, chemical, pharmaceutical, and GM crop companies. It has been active in designing risk assessment procedures for GM foods and chemicals for government regulators in the US and the EU.

ILSI is headquartered in Washington, DC, USA. Its branches include Argentina, Brazil, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, North Africa and Gulf Region, North America, North Andean, South Africa, South Andean, Southeast Asia Region, the focal point in China, and the ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI). ILSI is affiliated with the World Health Organization as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and has specialised consultative status with the FAO.

ILSI Europe was established in 1986. It describes its mission as follows:

The International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) is a nonprofit, worldwide foundation established in 1978 to advance the understanding of scientific issues relating to nutrition, food safety, toxicology, risk assessment, and the environment. By bringing together scientists from academia, government, industry, and the public sector, ILSI seeks a balanced approach to solving problems of common concern for the well being of the general public.

The ILSI 2010 Annual Report states:

Prominent researchers from industry and academia jointly lead ILSI, guiding its work to encourage scientific dialogue, generate data, and harmonize the use of science.

and

ILSI believes public-private collaboration on science improves safety, health, and wellness.

Designing GM food risk assessment for EU regulators

ILSI published two papers that played a seminal role in establishing the risk assessment procedure for genetically modified foods that was later adopted by the European Food Safety Authority:

• "Nutritional and Safety Assessments of Foods and Feeds Nutritionally Improved through Biotechnology” (2004)
• "Nutritional and Safety Assessments of Foods and Feeds Nutritionally Improved through Biotechnology: Case Studies” (2008).

These two papers were prepared by task forces of the ILSI International Food Biotechnology Committee. A report by German NGO TestBiotech examines how the 2004 ILSI paper prescribed the industry-friendly risk assessment process for GM foods, which was adopted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The TestBiotech report recounts how ILSI came up with the concept of comparative assessment, which is based on a comparison between genetically engineered plants and conventionally bred plants. They are seen as being equivalent if no significant differences are identified in the comparison of certain basic components, such as protein and carbohydrate content. ILSI itself admitted that the concept of comparative assessment was simply another name for the term "substantial equivalence", which the OECD coined in the early 1990s as a basis for risk assessment of GM foods:

In 2002, a task force of international scientific experts, convened by the ILSI Intl. Food Biotechnology Committee (IFBiC), addressed the topic of the safety and nutritional assessments of foods and feeds that are nutritionally improved through modern biotechnology. In 2004, the task force’s work culminated in the publication of a report that included a series of recommendations for the nutritional and safety assessments of such foods and feeds. This document has gained global recognition from organizations such as the European Food Safety Agency and has been cited by Japan and Australia in 2005 in their comments to Codex Alimentarius. The substantial equivalence paradigm, called the comparative safety assessment process in the 2004 ILSI publication, is a basic principle in the document.

The concept of substantial equivalence of GM and non-GM foods as a basis for risk assessment has come in for much criticism by scientists - hence, perhaps, ILSI's avoidance of the term.

TestBiotech explains why comparative assessment is so helpful to the GM industry:

the concept of Comparative Assessment helps to simplify risk assessment. In consequence, it avoids a more comprehensive risk assessment of genetically engineered plants. An in depth investigation would be necessary if genetically engineered plants were considered as substantially different from conventional plants because of the methods used in their production. In this case, which is much more plausible from a scientific point of view, a much broader concept for risk assessment would be needed.

In 2004, TestBiotech reports, EFSA published its Guidance Document on the risk assessment of food and feed derived from genetically engineered plants. Comparative Assessment was defined as the most important starting point.

Other contributors to/authors of the 2004 ILSI paper and members of the ILSI task force that generated it are employees of the major GM/agrochemical companies. For example:

• Bruce Chassy - lead author - runs Academics Review, a pro-GM website
• Kevin Glenn - contributor and ILSI task force member - Monsanto
• Barbara Henry - contributor - Bayer CropScience
• Ray Shillito - contributor - Bayer CropScience
• Robin Eichen Conn – ILSI task force member – Cargill
• Jason Hlywka - author - Cantox (consultancy firm to agrochemical and pharmaceutical companies)
• Natalie Hubbard - vice chair of the ILSI task force - DuPont/Pioneer
• Ian Munro - author - Cantox
• Martina Newell-McGloughlin - author - University of California, Davis
• Harry Kuiper - author - chair since 2003 of European Food Safety Authority GMO Panel, the group of experts responsible for the risk assessment of GM crops
• Jeff Stein - member of ILSI task force - Syngenta
• Jack Zabik - member of ILSI task force - Dow AgroSciences

Membership

Its membership consists of 400 of 'the world's leading manufacturers of food and food ingredients, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other consumer products'. ILSI Europe's members include:

Ajinomoto Europe | Akzo Nobel Functional Chemicals | Barilla G.& R. Fratelli | BASF | Bayer CropScience BioScience | Beverages Partners Worldwide | bioMérieux Industry | Campbell Soup | Campina | Cargill | Cereal Partners Worldwide | Coca-Cola European Union Group | Colloïdes Naturels International | Cosucra Groupe | CSM | Danisco | Dow Europe | DSM | DuPont | Firmenich | Friesland Foods | Frutarom | Givaudan | Groupe Danone | H J Heinz | Kellogg | Kraft Foods | La Morella Nuts | Lipid Nutrition | L’Oréal | Mars | McDonald's Europe | McNeil Nutritionals | Mead Johnson Nutritionals | Monsanto Europe-Africa | National Starch Food Innovation | Nestlé | Novozymes | PepsiCo International | Procter & Gamble | Raisio | Red Bull | RHM Technology | Roquette Frères | Royal Numico | Sensus | Seven Seas | Südzucker/BENEO Group | Swiss Quality Testing Services | Syral | Tate & Lyle Speciality Sweeteners | Tetra Pak Research | Ülker Bisküvi | Unilever | Valio | Veolia Environment | Wild Flavors | Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods | Wrigley | Yakult Europe

Structure

ILSI contains two main divisions:

• ILSI, International Food Biotechnology Committee(IFBiC)
• ILSI, International Organization Committee(IOC)

ILSI International Food Biotechnology Committee(IFBiC)

IFBiC was established in 1997, as ILSI says,

to support the development and harmonisation of science based regulations around the world for biotechnology-derived food products and to disseminate science-based information regarding the safety assessment of these products to governments, industry, academia, and other interested groups around the world.

ILSI says of IFBiC,

This committee was formed based on the needs of ILSI members and the critical roles that ILSI played in the development of two seminal reports.

These reports were:

• A 1990 Report produced in collaboration with the International Food Biotechnology Council, entitled "Biotechnologies and Food: Assuring the Safety of Foods Produced by Genetic Modification", and published in the industry-sponsored journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. ILSI describes the report as "the first comprehensive guidance document on the food safety assessment for foods derived from biotechnology".

• A series of reports published in 1996 in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition under the leadership of the ILSI Allergy and Immunology Institute (AII), which, ILSI says, "provided guidance for assessing the allergenic potential of foods derived from biotechnology. The concepts and recommendations contained in these key documents have served and continue to serve as key international contributions to the science-based safety assessment of foods derived from biotechnology".

ILSI International Organization Committee(IOC)

The IOC recommends and implements programmes of interest to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the FAO. ILSI is a recognised nongovernmental organisation by WHO and has specialised consultatative status with FAO.

ILSI's status with WHO downgraded following protests

In late January 2006 the World Health Organization decided that ILSI "can no longer take part in WHO activities setting microbiological or chemical standards for food and water, the UN health agency's executive board decided Friday in Geneva, Switzerland." ILSI was barred "from helping set global standards for protecting food and water supplies because of its funding sources". However, it remains one of the NGOs with accreditation as an observer at WHO meetings.

According to an article by Dr Michael F. Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, published in the International Journal of Occupational Health:

The WHO chastised ILSI for “the failure to fully disclose ILSI’s funding sources,” advocacy of “public health policy directions... that are counter to accepted nutrition policy (especially related to obesity, alcohol, caries and chronic disease causes and means of control); and a perception that many of [ILSI’s] developing country partners and recipients of funds are unaware of ILSI’s [industry] funding base.”

The downgrading of ILSI's status followed a letter to the WHO protesting ILSI's role in setting standards from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Working Group, United Steelworkers of America and a coalition of other groups.

In the letter, NRDC senior scientist Jennifer Sass wrote to WHO:

The WHO and other public health agencies risk their scientific credibility and may be compromising public health by partnering with ILSI.

Sass said ILSI

has a demonstrated history of putting the interests of its exclusively corporate membership ahead of science and health concerns, and that ILSI's special status with the WHO provides a back door to influence WHO activities.

EFSA chief resigns from ILSI after conflict of interest accusations

In October 2010 the science journal Nature reported that Diana Banati, the chair of the management board of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), had resigned from the European board of directors of ILSI. Banati's departure from ILSI followed an accusation from French MEP José Bové that the published declaration of interests of Bánáti failed to mention that in April 2010 she had joined the European board of directors of ILSI. Bové added that EFSA "was under the control of the agri-food industry".

Nature reported that Banati's action was that recommended by Marion Nestle, an expert on nutrition and the food industry at New York University, who said that were she Banati, "she would resign from the ILSI board."

Banati, director general of Hungary's Central Food Research Institute in Budapest, who was chair of the EFSA management board from October 2008 to 30 June 2010, was reelected to the position on 21 October at the first meeting of the new board, whose members were renewed in July. "Professor Diana Banati has resigned from positions which may create a potential conflict of interests with EFSA activities," said an EFSA statement following the meeting.

ILSI HESI

In 1989 ILSI set up the ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) -

as a global branch of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) to provide an international forum to advance the understanding of scientific issues related to human health, toxicology, risk assessment, and the environment.

The HESI website says:

In 2002, HESI was recognized by the United States government as a publicly supported, tax-exempt organization, independently chartered from ILSI.

However, HESI's industry affiliations are clear. The HESI website adds:

HESI draws its membership from business entities that are producers of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, agricultural and other industrial chemicals, paper products, personal care and household products, food and beverages, communications products, transportation products, or energy products, or of ingredients or containers used in, or in connection with these products. Providers of scientific and technical services used in the safety testing or production of these products or in the assessment of the human health and environmental safety of these products are also members.

ILSI HESI members

Members of ILSI HESI as listed in the ILSI Annual Report 2010 are:

Abbott Laboratories | Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd | Allergan | Amgen, Inc. | Astellas Pharma Inc. | AstraZeneca AB | BASF Corporation | Bayer AG/Bayer CropScience | Biogen Idec MA Inc. | Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH | Bristol-Myers Squibb Company | Charles River Laboratories | Covance Laboratories, Inc. | Daiichi-Sankyo Co., Ltd. | Data Sciences International, Inc. | Dow AgroSciences/ The Dow Chemical Company | Dow Corning Corporation | E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company | Eisai Co., Ltd. | Eli Lilly and Company | Experimental Pathology Laboratories, Inc. | ExxonMobil Biomedical Sciences Inc. | GlaxoSmithKline | Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc. | Institut de Recherches Int. SERVIER | Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals | L’Oreal Corporation | Merck & Co., Inc. | Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. | Monsanto Company | Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation | Pfizer, Inc. | The Procter & Gamble Company | Purdue Pharma L.P. | sanofi-aventis | Shell Chemicals, Ltd. | Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. | Syngenta Ltd. | Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited | The Coca-Cola Company | Valent USA Corporation

Board of Trustees

As listed in the ILSI 2010 Annual Report, Trustees are:

• Dr. Michael E. Knowles – ILSI President – Coca-Cola Company, Belgium
• Dr. Sushila Chang – Chair, ILSI Board of Trustees – University of Queensland, Australia
• Dr. Todd Abraham – Kraft Foods, USA
• Dr. Marc Bonnefoi – sanofi-aventis, USA
• Dr. Alan Boobis – Imperial College London, United Kingdom
• Dr. Henry Chin – Coca-Cola Company, USA
• Dr. Samuel Cohen – University of Nebraska Medical Center, USA
• Dr. John Doull – University of Kansas Medical School, USA
• Dr. Marion Ehrich – VA-MD Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, USA
• Mr. Reginald Fletcher – Kellogg’s Europe, Ireland
• Dr. Roy Fuchs – Monsanto Company, USA
• Dr. Jay Goodman – Michigan State University, USA
• Dr. Phil Guzelian – University of Colorado Health Science Center (Retired), USA
• Dr. Ib Knudsen – Danish Institute for Food & Veterinary Research (Retired), Denmark
• Dr. Tamotsu Kuwata – University of Human Arts and Sciences, Japan
• Dr. Ik-Boo Kwon – Lotte Company, Korea
• Dr. Asahi Matsuyama – Kikkoman Corporation, Japan
• Dr. John Milner – National Cancer Institute, USA
• Dr. Gérard Pascal – National Institute for Agricultural Research, France
• Dr. Felipe Rodríquez – Pepsico, México
• Dr. P. K. Seth – Lucknow Biotechology Park, India

ILSI publications

ILSI Assembly of members, 2002.

Contact details

One Thomas Circle, NW

9th Floor

Washington, DC 20005 – 5802

USA

Tel 00 1 202 659 0074

Fax 00 1 202 659 3859

e-mail ilsi@ilsi.org

External links

• Sarah Boseley 'WHO "infiltrated by food industry"' The Guardian Thursday January 9, 2003
• Sarah Boseley 'Sugar industry threatens to scupper WHO' The Guardian Monday April 21, 2003
• Sarah Boseley 'WHO 'buried' report to please food industry' The Guardian Wednesday November 3, 2004
• Liam McDougall, 'Sugar Wars; Obesity is a global crisis and at its heart is our love of sugary food' Sunday Herald, Feb 29, 2004.
• John Helperin, "WHO to Rely Less on U.S. Research", Washington Post, January 27, 2006.