Codex: Labelling Committee Asked to Allow Information on Food Preventive Effects

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Health

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The Codex Alimentarius Committee on Food Labelling in its recent meeting in Montreal, Canada, heard a proposal of the Republic of South Africa, to re-think its rules which prohibit food manufacturers saying or implying that a food may aid in the prevention or cure of a disease.

Although various foods clearly do prevent and even cure diseases, any claims for such effects are strictly limited to pharmaceutical products registered as medicines.

The South African proposal to the labelling committee of Codex points out this inconsistency and argues that the rules should be revised; that it should be possible to inform people about the health properties of foods by indicating on food labels what is increasingly obvious from the results of scientific studies.

Unfortunately the proposal of South Africa did not find agreement in the Codex Committee. The representatives of other Codex member countries did not believe that the medical/pharmaceutical monopoly on cure and prevention could or should be challenged.

Please take a moment to read the proposal and the responses it received from the other members of the committee. If you do not agree that the information about food and health should be withheld from consumers, there IS something you can do: Contact your country's Codex Alimentarius representation and ask them what their viewpoint is on food and prevention of disease. Engage your health authorities in a discussion of this subject. Try to find out whether they are willing to concede that the maxim "let your food be your medicine" is as relevant today as it was when Hippocrates coined it.

Read the South African proposal and the discussion in Committee here:

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

JOINT FAO/WHO FOOD STANDARDS PROGRAMME

CODEX COMMITTEE ON FOOD LABELLING

Thirty-second Session
Montréal, Canada, 10-14 May 2004

OTHER BUSINESS AND FUTURE WORK

PROPOSAL FROM SOUTH AFRICA

CO-WRITTEN BY ANTOINETTE BOOYZEN & DR. ANTHONY REES

PRESENTED BY ANTOINETTE BOOYZEN

ORAL PRESENTATION 

(12TH May 2004)
 
 
Thank you Madam Chair,

In searching for the truth, South Africa wishes to propose a revision of the Codex General Guidelines on Claims (CAC/GL 1-1979) which was revised in 1991, and specifically point 3.4 that prohibits “Claims as to the suitability of a food for use in the prevention, alleviation, treatment or cure of a disease.”

Thirteen years have passed since the last revision of these guidelines. In this time a huge body of scientific information has become available to prove without dispute that point 3.4 is no longer sustainable or morally justifiable considering Codex’s mandate that when setting forth a standard or guideline, Codex Committees must base all decisions on scientific evidence.

Scientific evidence now proves beyond a doubt that food and nutrients can offer an alternative option in the prevention, alleviation and cure of disease.

Nutritional ‘cures’ include classical deficiency diseases and metabolic disorders. Taking into account the role of genetic dispositions, environmental factors and pathogenic diseases, the onset of most chronic diseases of lifestyle can be either be prevented or alleviated by the use of optimal nutrition.

Madam Chair, In the title of the W.H.O document “W.H.O Technical Report on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases” (2003) the W.H.O also acknowledges the fact that nutrition plays a role in the prevention of chronic diseases. We must remember that the W.H.O is a parent body of Codex Alimentarius.

In our written proposal before you, (CX-FL 04-11) we refer to other science-based examples of evidence where nutrition provides a safe and effective alternative option to conventional medical intervention. We want to emphasize that these examples represent only a small selection of balanced scientific opinions contained in reputable, international, peer-reviewed medical journals.

In this proposal we wish to emphasize that nutrients, as essential facilitators in human physiology, rightfully belong within the scope of Codex Alimentarius Committees such as the CCFL and the CCNFSDU. We emphasize that Codex deals with food and nutrition, despite the ‘perceived’ overlapping characteristics of nutrients and medicines in terms of their healing properties.

The principles of biochemistry and cellular physiology clearly demonstrate the essential role of nutrients and food constituents at optimal levels in maintaining and preserving health, including the prevention, alleviation, treatment and even cure of disease.

Continuing to allow clause 3.4 to exist in these guidelines in this 21st century, denies consumers the right to take responsibility for their own health. By not allowing for these life-saving statements, South Africa truly believes that Codex is indirectly misleading the public at large. For the majority of nutritionally uneducated consumers, food labels may be their only source of information in making an informed choice.

Nutrients act mainly as prophylaxis by assisting the body to heal itself in supporting the mechanism of biochemical homeostasis on the cellular level, while most medicines are designed to address existing pathological conditions on a symptomatic basis without affecting a sustainable, permanent cure. Nutrients nourish and heal simultaneously - a characteristic which is certainly not true for any medicine.

Madam Chair, if we consider the purpose of food fortification, it is to prevent diseases such as mental retardation in the case of Iodine deficiency, blindness in the case if Vitamin A deficiency, and in the case of Folic Acid deficiency in Neural Tube Defects etc.

According to the UNICEF document – A Global Progress Report of 2003 – vitamin and mineral deficiencies contribute to the impairment of hundreds of millions of growing minds and the lowering of national IQ’s. It means wholesale damage to immune systems and the deaths of 1 million children per year, as well as 250 000 serious birth defects annually. A simple cure in the form of food fortification or nutritional supplementation could have prevented these tragic diseases, yet Codex denies these facts by allowing a non sustainable clause such as 3.4 referred to previously. We want to emphasize that these solutions are nutritional solutions and NOT medical solutions.

In allowing this clause to remain in this Codex Guideline, this committee evades its responsibility to people of this planet, by censoring evidence-based scientific information of the role of nutrition in prevention, alleviation, treatment and cure of disease.

For several years now CCFL has worked on a document called “Health Claims”. The principle that nutrition can prevent, enhance, improve and in certain instances, cure illness, is already embodied in the definitions for “Other function claims” and “Reduction of disease risk claims”.

Taking into account these facts Madam Chair, the question this committee must consider today is:

Are we fully prepared to acknowledge the role of optimum nutrition in the prevention, alleviation, treatment and cure of disease, and thereby acknowledge the Codex principle of basing its standards and guidelines on science?

Thank you Madam Chair.

THE CONTINUED TRANSCRIPTION

CHAIR

Committee members, you have heard this proposal from South Africa and wish ask committee members as to their opinion on the proposal … um …. which in fact if it was fully supported would mean that we would have to put a question to the Commission as to whether we engage in new work on this subject. That is the issue before you, and now I open the floor.

Mexico please….

MEXICO

Thank you Madam Chair

I must say that this document was circulated with very little fore notice for this meeting and further more, the version in Spanish was done in with - lets just call it honestly a very bad translation.

In the document some paragraphs remain in English and there are a number of errors throughout the whole document. All of this means that we could not consider it in great detail. In our committee of the national level we can not give it a favorable opinion at this stage. However we can say in that general terms in Mexico, there is a great concern, because consumers tend to stop taking their medication on the pretext of taking in some foods and supplements, instead of their medication.

This we believe would lead to serious public health problems.

The examples that we see in the document do not refer to foods, but rather substances, …. which can help with the treatment of certain diseases and illness.

But, these substances are dealt in Mexico as if they are medications and not as foods. And therefore they have to comply with the formalities required for the registration of medicine.

So, even though we may recognize that some foods may have high concentrations of some of these substances … when their use is for therapeutic reason, it seems to us and it should be promoted more as a medicine rather than as a food.

So in this sense, we are not in the position to support this proposal for new work for this committee.

Thank you Madam Chair

CHAIR

Thank you Mexico, Ireland please.

IRELAND

Thank you Madam Chair.

I speak behalf of the member states of the EU.

This is certainly a fascinating paper … um … and I would like to stress to South Africa that the beverty of our response is not meant to be unreflecting on the amount of work that we feel has gone into this document, but the member states of the European Union do not support the proposal for the revision of 3.4 of the Codex General Guidelines on Claims as requested of South Africa.

Thank you.

CHAIR

Thank you, Australia please.

AUSTRALIA

Thank you Madam Chair

Australia recognizes