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Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 10:24:29 +0200
Reply-To: PSA Forum
Sender: PSA Forum
From: fao.who.psaforum@WHO.INT
Subject: From Moderator: Dr Schaffner`s comments
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

From the Moderator: Due to problems with transmission yesterday, it is not sure that everyone received Dr Schaffner`s comments. They are therefore sent again in the message below.

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From Dr Schaffner:

Referring to Dr Ahmed`s comments: Nevertheless, the question of deciding the terms of reference of the scientific advice sought by governments and how these are phrased or need or need not be rephrased by the expert(s) may come into account, particularly within the expert's final report when the expert would be the best suited for judging the situation.

It's not clear if Dr. Ahmad is refering to something missing from the document, or something in the document he does not agree with.

I do agree that the issue of rephrasing questions and how it is to be handled is a critical one for consideration.

2) a. Review of JMPR should consider dietary habits in view...
b. Recognition of expert work by national governments

Do these comments also refer to Paper 1b?

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Referring to Paper 3.c:

As the author of this paper, I'd like to respond. My background is as a microbiologist and microbial risk assessor. As I noted in a reply to another e-forum message, perhaps the papers would benefit from co-authors who have a complementary expertise (i.e. adding a chemist/toxicologist to this paper as my co-author).

Since microbial contaminants are never produced by a private stakeholder, the first case never arises in microbial risk assessment, so I was referring to the second case exclusively.

Microbial risk assessors and chemical risk assessors have different cultures when it comes to using available data and dealing with uncertainty. While you say ..." using poor quality data to "create" risk assessments and provide scientific advice has its limits", I'd argue that ANY risk assessment has it's limits. And if microbial risk assessors waited for = good quality data we would never have done any risk assessments in the first place... Again, this is really a cultural issue, but points out the need to have authors from both fields of expertise.