GOED names expanded board of directors

25-Feb-2011 - Last updated on 25-Feb-2011 at 13:01 GMT

The Global Organization for EPA and DHA (GOED) has announced its second board expansion within a year with EPAX’s Baldur Hjaltason (pictured) moving from vice-chair to chair to replace Croda’s David Shannon, while DSM Nutritional Products’ Amanda Ruess is promoted from secretary to vice-chair.

Leslie van der Meulen from Aurora Algae takes over as secretary with Ocean Nutrition Canada’s Robert Orr, a former chairman, continuing as treasurer.

The new board comprises 16 members and follows a previous expansion in June last year from eight to 14 members as the group evolves to deal with an expanding membership that has grown to more than 100 companies and organisations since its 2006 formation.

The other 12 members of the new board are:

David Shannon, Croda

Gerard Bannenberg, Solutex

Cynthia Crouch, DuPont

Hans de Wit, Marvesa

Philip Fass, Martek Biosciences

Al Gallegos, Solae

Dr. Carol Locke, OmegaBrite

Arunas Paliulis, FINA

Dr. Harald Ronneberg

Frode Remmereit, Napro Pharma

Olav Sandnes, Marine Nutriceutical

Federico Tripodi, Monsanto

Lobbying

GOED has been active in lobbying in the EU over brain claims that are under consideration for DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and ALA (alpha linoleic acid).

It submitted a letter to the European Commission on the matter where it highlighted European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) findings that ALA is only valuable physiologically as a pre-cursor to DHA.

The group feared that the meeting would see a claim for 0-18 years for ALA (alpha linoleic acid), but only 0-12 months for DHA (docosahexaenoic acid).

“EFSA has specifically given the Commission a letter and presentation stating that in their opinion the ALA effect is only due to conversion to DHA and therefore any ALA claim should also apply to DHA,” said GOED executive director, Adam Ismail.

“Health claims are supposed to reflect the best scientific advice available, and while the Member States are under no obligation to follow EFSA’s advice, it would be the first time they have ignored EFSA under the health claims regulations.”