Codex Alimentarius Commission meeting:
Geneva, Switzerland, July 2006
July 2006 – The 29th Session of the
Alimentarius Commission took place in Geneva,
Switzerland, 3-7 July, 2006. Whilst it may have
been somewhat "out of the limelight" recently, the Commission's
support for the "business with disease" has continued unabated,
and the wide scope of its activities continues to make it a
significant and growing danger to the future health of all humanity.
The collaborative partnership between FAO and Codex
some initial introductions from the Commission's new Chairman, Dr.
Claude J.S. Mosha of the United Republic of Tanzania, an opening
statement was made by Dr. Kraisid Tontisirin, Director of the
and Consumer Protection Division, Agriculture, Biosecurity, Nutrition
and Consumer Protection Department, FAO.
talked about the growing interest in Codex in "civil society",
claiming that Codex can be proud of what it has achieved, but adding,
ominously, that there is a lot still to be done. He added that it is
important to communicate the work of Codex to "civil society". In
talking about the work of Codex – and in particularly sharp contrast
by the Natural Solutions Foundation
has expressed "significant displeasure with the anti-health
approach to nutrition taken by Codex over the past 4 decades" –
Tontisirin particularly emphasised the collaborative partnership that
FAO and Codex enjoy.
Amendments to the Codex Procedural Manual
As regular visitors to our
website will no doubt already be aware, the legal
bases for the Commission's operations and the procedures it is
required to follow are published in the
Alimentarius Procedural Manual.
Codex delegates make frequent reference to this publication during
their meetings, and repeatedly stress the importance of Codex
standards and other related texts being drawn up in accordance with
its requirements. Nevertheless, and as
adoption of the Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements
in July 2005
demonstrated only too well, the Commission is quite happy to follow
these rules when they suit its aims, but not when they
therefore, during this year's meeting the Commission's agenda
included a proposal by the Codex Committee on General Principles to
delete a key statement from the Procedural Manual that the Codex
Alimentarius "also includes provisions of an advisory nature in
the form of codes of practice, guidelines and other recommended
measures intended to assist in achieving the purposes of the Codex
The proposal to delete this statement was most significant, as the
Commission frequently claims that the adoption by countries of Codex
guidelines is merely optional. Nevertheless, here it was considering
the deletion from the Procedural Manual of a statement that some
texts were "advisory".
Notably therefore, the delegation from the United States was openly in favour
of the proposal to delete this statement. Several other delegations
meanwhile – including those of Malaysia, Singapore and the
(NHF) – opposed its deletion, expressing the view that if no
reference were made to advisory texts then it might logically be
presumed that Codex texts were indeed mandatory.
As a result, the Chair subsequently acknowledged that there was strong
and sustained opposition to the proposal, and the matter was
forwarded back to the Codex Committee on General Principles without
the aforesaid amendment to the Procedural Manual being made.
The ‘watering-down’ of standards for organic foods
This year's meeting of the Commission also considered a list of
additives recently recommended by the Codex Committee on Food
Labelling (CCFL) to be permitted for use in organic foods of plant
origin and in some organic dairy products. The delegation from Cuba
strongly objected to the adoption of this list, whilst
objected to the inclusion of carrageenan on the grounds that there is
it is associated with the formation of ulcers in the intestines and
cancerous tumors in the gut.
NHF also made the point that consumers equate usage of the word
"organic" with safety; and as such, given that one of the primary
stated aims of Codex is supposedly to protect the health of
consumers, that carrageenan should not be permitted for use in
The delegations from the United States and the European Union, however,
supported the adoption of this list of additives. Nevertheless,
bearing in mind that
Commission's Executive Committee had also recently expressed
concern about its adoption,
albeit on a technicality, the Chairman returned the list to CCFL for
comments and further consideration.
the most controversial issue discussed by the Commission affecting
organic food was a proposal by CCFL for Codex to undertake new work
on the inclusion of ethylene in the Guidelines for the Production,
Processing, Labelling and Marketing of Organically Produced Foods.
Ethylene is used to artificially induce fruits and
vegetables to ripen whilst they are in transit, and as such this
proposal represented a disturbing step towards
acceptance of the same dubious and unnatural agricultural practices
that their non-organic cousins are already subject to.
the Commission's discussions,
pointed out that whilst consumers purchase organic foods for a wide
variety of reasons there can be little doubt that the increasing
demand for organic food is representative of the fact that consumers
increasingly want their food to be produced in as natural a manner as
possible. As such, it went on, interfering with the rate that organic
food ripens is not conducive to producing it in as natural a
manner as possible, despite the fact that plants produce their own
ethylene as part of their ripening processes. NHF concluded by saying
that it strongly believed the commencement of this work would be in
direct contravention of principles that are widely accepted and
promoted by consumers and advocates of organic foods, and asked for
its objections to the proposal to be noted in the Commission's
and despite further objections from the delegations of Cuba, Egypt
and the Philippines, the Chairman ruled that work on the inclusion of
ethylene in the Guidelines could go ahead.
proposed definition of advertising contravenes UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
controversial decision at this year's meeting of the Commission was
a decision to approve new work on a definition of advertising in
relation to health and nutrition claims.
a health freedom perspective, the definition that has been proposed
is most worrying, and reads as follows:
any representation to the public, by any means other than a label,
that is intended or is likely to influence and shape attitude,
beliefs and behaviours in order to promote directly or indirectly the
sale of the food."
wording of this proposed definition raises several key questions.
example, as well as its potential to result in the
prohibition of advertising legitimate, published, peer-reviewed
scientific research papers, could it also inhibit health freedom
organizations from influencing and shaping attitude, beliefs and
behaviours regarding the sale of dietary supplements?
could restrictions on advertising based on this definition be said to
contravene the right to freedom of opinion and expression
and/or the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers (both of which are enshrined in Article
19 of the United
Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights)?
however, given that the
depends for its survival upon the restriction of any and all means by
which consumers can obtain natural health information, potential
restrictions on advertising are now clearly a key health freedom
issue at Codex.
Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health
The background to
this agenda item goes back to the
2005 meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission,
in Rome, Italy, where it was decided that the potential areas for
action by Codex in relation to the implementation of the
were mainly relevant to the work of the Codex Committee on Food
Labelling (CCFL) and the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for
Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU). As a result it was agreed that the
(WHO), in cooperation with the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), would produce a document for consideration by these
committees, including specific proposals for new work.
Discussions at this year's meeting
of the Commission opened with a summary by a representative of WHO
regarding the discussions that had taken place thus far at
in November 2005
in May 2006.
The WHO/FAO recommendations regarding the next steps to
be taken were as follows:
WHO and FAO respectfully
request that the Commission accept the delay in presenting a document
for their consideration during this 29th session.
Commission so decides, WHO and FAO will complete an action document
for Codex soon after the present session of the Commission and the
Codex Secretariat will circulate it for comment to all Codex Contact
Points by way of a Circular Letter. The comments received, together
with the document itself, will be considered by the next sessions of
CCNFSDU and CCFL. The views and recommendations of these committees
will then be forwarded to the 30th Session of the Commission for
The Chairman put these recommendations
to the Commission, and it was agreed that WHO and FAO would complete
a document containing concrete proposals for possible actions by
Codex, and that this would be circulated for comments. The comments
received, together with the document itself, will then be considered
at the next meetings of CCNFSDU and CCFL, after which the views and
recommendations of these committees will be forwarded to the next
meeting of the Commission for further guidance.
latest Discussion Paper on the Global Strategy
– prepared prior to the meeting by WHO in cooperation with FAO –
comments submitted by South Africa
at the May 2006 meeting of CCFL in a mere two lines, as follows:
respondent noted that dietary supplements can play a key role in
eliminating world hunger and promoting world health outcomes in line
with the Global Strategy and in line with the mandate and work of
As such, regular visitors to our
website will note the stark contrast between this fact and
being made by the Natural Solutions Foundation
that Codex has been directed to implement the eleven proposals made
by South Africa.
disorganised and inefficient
some senses the meetings of the Codex Commission present quite a
different overall picture to the one that is sometimes observed at
meetings of some of the individual Codex committees. For example,
whilst on the one hand
Commission is intimately connected to the hydra-headed
beast controlling the global food and nutrient supply,
the reality is that its meetings can at times be chaotic,
disorganized and inefficient.
whilst some delegations, such as the European Community, the United
States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and India
undoubtedly follow closely everything that goes on, others at times
give the appearance of being unprepared; of not taking proper notes;
of not properly understanding what is being discussed; or of only
being interested in particular agenda items.
Also, and in addition to the
manipulation that goes on both behind the scenes and during the
meetings themselves, there can be little doubt that Codex is
increasingly a monolithic bureaucracy, and that as such it is subject
to many of the same problems that all pan-global organizations are
prone to becoming infected by. Much of the time, for example, the
countries that attend Codex meetings are pulling in opposite
directions simultaneously, with the result that nothing ever gets
agreed quickly and whatever does get agreed is by definition a lowest
common denominator result.
Furthermore, and as
of the Codex Committee Structure and Mandates of Codex Committees and
Task Forces has
notably pointed out, "Most
of the committees are comprised of dedicated expert specialists. They
are largely autonomous and with little formal linkages or
accountability to other committees. They generally propose their own
work programmes, in areas which are so specialized as to make close
oversight or scrutiny by the Commission extremely difficult."
Whilst we would obviously strongly differ with this statement over
its use of the phrase "expert specialists" (in the sense that so
far as dietary supplements and natural therapies are concerned Codex
committees mostly contain neither experts nor specialists) the
reality is that its general thrust is essentially not quite so wide
of the mark as some might imagine.
committees with little formal linkages or accountability to other
committees are perfect targets for being hijacked by industry,
special interests and the proponents of "harmonization at any cost"
– especially so when
texts that these committees produce are used by the WTO to resolve
international trade disputes.
Add into this mix the fact that the vast majority of the national
delegates who attend Codex meetings have only a very limited
knowledge of modern nutritional science and natural therapies, and it
very quickly becomes easy to see how we ended up where we are now.
cosy picture that the Codex Alimentarius Commission paints of itself
largely disinformation designed to deflect us from its true purposes.
Nevertheless, whilst this picture has latterly been further
complicated by organizations
and individuals spreading additional
about Codex, we
should not allow this to distract us from the truth.
is not just about nutritional supplements. In fact, it is the primary
political battlefield where the war is being waged about who will
regulate and control the global food supply from farm to fork. This
‘war’ is being waged by
increasingly tangled web of global authorities, big business and
and, as such, trade and profit are its prime goals – not human
Current indications suggest that the
long-term financial winners in the battle to gain control over the
world's food supply are likely to be the pharmaceutical and chemical
industries; especially so given that the adoption of still further
Codex guidelines for foods derived from biotechnology now seems
almost inevitable. As a result, our freedom of choice, our future
health and the environment itself are all now clearly at risk.
Good nutrition and
optimum health threaten the pharmaceutical industry's
because they reduce the size of the marketplace for synthetic drugs.
However, food that is free of pesticide residues, artificial
additives and other contaminants can, by definition, only come about
as a result of a lower global usage, or ideally the entire
elimination, of these chemicals. This, of course, would not be in the
financial interests of the pharmaceutical and chemical companies that
manufacture such substances, as it would clearly result in lower
profits, better health for entire populations, and a consequent
reduction in the use of synthetic drugs.
conclusion therefore, whilst it may have been somewhat "out of the
limelight" recently, the Codex Alimentarius Commission's support
for the "business with disease" has continued unabated, and the
wide scope of its activities continues to make it a significant
danger to the future health of all humanity.
we want to see a world where our access to safe, nutritious foods and
effective dietary supplements is restricted and controlled by
pharmaceutical and chemical interests? If not then we must act now,
before it's too late.