Codex Committee to Discuss Dietary Supplements in Germany in November
The Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) will meet for the 29th session in Bad Neuenahr, Germany, from November 12 to 16, 2007. The Committee, established in 1966 and hosted by a Secretariat permanently located in Germany, is responsible for studying nutritional problems referred by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The committee also drafts provisions on nutritional aspects for all foods and develops guidelines, general principles, and standards for foods for special dietary uses. CCNFSDU, one of 27 Codex Alimentarius Commission committees, develops international guidelines and standards for foods including infant formula, cereal-based foods for infants, gluten-free foods and dietary supplements. Last year instead of meeting in Germany the CCNFSDU Committee met in Thailand with the Thai government co-hosting the session along with the German Secretariat.
In the upcoming November session seven topics are to be discussed, including 1) Claims for Nutrient Content (fibre), 2) Draft Standard for Gluten-Free Foods, 3) Nutrition Compounds Intended for Infants and Young Children, 4) Proposed Draft Recommendations on the Scientific Basis of Health Claims, Discussion papers 5) on Nutrient Reference Values for Labeling Purposes, 6) Amending the Codex General Principles for the Addition of Essential Nutrients to Foods and 7) Establishment and application of Risk Analysis Principles by CCNFSDU.
The seventh item on the agenda on risk analysis may be the most critical consumers, practitioners and manufacturers concerned with protecting access to dietary supplements. According to Dr. Robert Verkerk, Executive Director of the Alliance for Natural Health and AAHF Scientific Director, a more “scientifically rational risk/benefit analysis”" needs to replace the existing practices of “flawed methods of risk assessment for nutrients. If this change to an improved practice for analysis is not made the values of vitamins and other dietary supplements will be measured using “unnecessarily low dosage ceilings will be applied which could restrict very large numbers of people from accessing dosages beneficial to health.”
At the meetings the International Alliance of Dietary/Food Supplement Associations ( www.iadsa.org ), “the single coordinated voice speaking on behalf of over 9,500 companies and their 55 trade associations across six continents” act on the interests of the largest manufacturers and pharmaceuticals companies but does not represent the interests of consumers and health practitioners. The only Health Freedom organization with the privilege of being represented at the Committee meeting is the US-based INGO (International Non-Governmental Organization) the National Health Federation established in 1955. At the Thailand committee meting the NHF ream was comprised of AAHF’s Scientific Director Dr. Robert Verkerk of the ANH in the United Kingdom, Dr. Wong Ang Peng, President of the Society of Natural Health in Malaysia who has previously attended a CCNFSDU meeting as part of the Malaysian delegation, and Ingrid Franzon of Sweden. Verkerk later reported,
According to Dr. Verkerk in Thailand discussions on infant formula and foods occupying around 75% of the committee’s time, with the crucial agenda items impacting Dietary Supplements not beginning until after dinner on the last day of the Committee Meetings. “It seems that the continued low priority for these agenda items over successive CCNFSDU meetings is perhaps being engineered by the Codex Secretariat in order to allow the European Commission to progress its own regulations in these areas, so that once completed these can act as models for future Codex standards. “This year’s meeting can best be described as an industrial and geographic polarization. It is deeply disheartening to see the views of delegations from small countries, those of INGOs like the NHF, backed by many thousands of consumers, being trampled on by the EC bloc and other big countries, who seem much more concerned with the problems of big business rather than the interests of consumers,” said Ingrid Franzon of Sweden.
In November 2007 in Germany, the United States will be represented at the meeting by U.S. Delegate Barbara O. Schneeman, Director of the FDA’s Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling and Dietary Supplements and Alternate Delegate Allison Yates, Director of the USDA’s Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center.

US Government Codex website: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Regulations_&_Policies/Codex_Alimentarius
Report on 28th CCNFSDU Meeting in Thailand (PDF, 103 pages) http://www.codexalimentarius.net/download/report/669/al30_26e.pdf
Responses to Questions about Codex and Dietary Supplements http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dscodex.html
AAHF Pulse of Health Freedom, June 7, 2007 Copyright AAHF 2007