Fwd: Codex Exec. Cmte.Endorses Restrictive Guidelines

[Guest guest]

Codex Commission Executive Committee Endorses Restrictive Vitamin-Mineral Guidelines

by S. , Esq., Board Chair, Citizens for Health who is attending the Codex Committee meeting in Rome as a member of the official U.S. Delegation.

July 3, 2005. Dr. Ed Scarbrough, US Codex Office administrator and administrative leader of the US Delegation to the 28th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, today told the delegation at its pre-meeting session that the Codex Commission Executive Committee had endorsed the vitamin and mineral guidelines recommended to it for adoption by its Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU). The endorsed guidelines call for upper intake limits based on toxic chemical risk assessment, prohibit health claims for foods, and urge consumers to restrict their intake of nutrients to the foods they eat. The endorsement of the guidelines by the Executive Committee virtually ensures their adoption by the full Commission at its July 4 meeting.

Dr. Scarbrough commented on Chinese and other Asian country desires to have greater flexibility, based on unique dietary habits, to add other categories than vitamins and minerals to the guidelines, and Australia’s “perennial” desire to restrict the guidelines to countries that treat vitamins and minerals only as foods. These arguments, he reported, did not move the Codex Executive Committee away from endorsing the guidelines. Nor did Canada’s lack of support for the guidelines. Canada argued that “given the differences in diets, food supplies, attitudes, and consumption patterns around the world, such guidelines were best left to national governments.” This argument failed to move the Executive Committee to recommend delay or rejection of the guidelines.

>>click here to read the full story

S. , partner in Swankin and , a 32 year old Washington DC law firm is a Private Sector Advisor to the US Codex Delegation on behalf of Citizens for Health and Citizens for Health supporter NOW Foods.

We are committed to protecting your privacy, so your email address will NEVER be sold or exchanged. If you would like to unsubscribe from this newsletter, please reply to this message with "Remove" in the subject line.