Mr. Chairman,
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On my own behalf and that of the Director-General of FAO I extend to you a very warm welcome to Geneva.
This session is different from others in that, for the first time in the 28-year history of your Commission, it is presided over by a chairman from a developing country. Mr. Mendez, I wish you every success your important task of steering the Commission through its agenda and to a successful conclusion.
This session is also the first I have had the honour and pleasure of opening. I should like to take this opportunity to confirm the World Health Assembly's continued recognition of the importance of WHO's cooperation with FAO in supporting the aims of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, particularly from the standpoint of protecting consumers against possible health hazards in food.
I welcome the eight new Members who have joined your Commission since the last session in 1987, namely Antigua and Barbuda, Equatorial Guinea, the German Democratic Republic, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Viet Nam, and Yemen. 138 countries are now Members of the Commission. The constantly increasing participation of developing countries in the Commission's work is most encouraging. I can only hope that other developing countries will, in due course, also find it beneficial to join the Commission and thereby profit from its work. You may recall that, in a resolution adopted in 1987, the World Health Assembly called on all Member States of WHO to make all appropriate efforts to adopt Codex standards, and to fully utilize the recommendations of the Commission for the promotion of food safety and the international food trade.
The availability of internationally agreed food standards, maximum residue limits for pesticides, veterinary drugs, and other chemicals in food, as well as of codes of hygienic and technological practice, are in themselves highly important contributions to public health. Your Commission, Mr. Chairman, deserves the highest recognition from the global community for these achievements. However, it does not appear that the availability of these internationally agreed standards and codes has been able to reverse a very worrying trend of increasing morbidity rates associated with food consumption. In almost all countries where statistics on foodborne diseases are available, and I would point out that the number of such countries is still too few, we can observe an increase in the incidence of such diseases. We have reason to believe that this trend is also occurring in many other countries.
It is thus obvious that neither the industrialized, nor the developing, countries have so far found an answer to the pressing public health and economic problems posed by contaminated foods. May I remind you that WHO regards illness due to contaminated foods as one of the most widespread health problems in the contemporary world, and an important cause of reduced economic productivity. This is even more surprising when one realizes that many of the current disease outbreaks are due not to lack of scientific knowledge and technologies but rather to failure to apply well-known principles and technologies. Your Commission, Ladies and Gentlemen, has been responsible for drawing up many of these principles and technologies.
Why should this be so, given the sophisticated food safety laws, standards, and enforcement mechanisms operating in industrialized countries? A poor food safety record in these countries is certainly no encouragement to the developing world to strengthen their food safety laws and control mechanisms. Both developing and industrialized countries, however, must recognize that the formal food safety infrastructure cannot by itself prevent foodborne illnesses, particularly those caused by microbiologically contaminated foods that are responsible for almost all cases. In today's rapidly modernizing world, the close links that earlier prevailed between mankind and its food supply are now being reversed, as forces such as urbanization or cash-cropping replace traditional subsistence farming or pastoral lifestyles. The economic resources at the command of people are frequently insufficient for them to have access to a safe and hygienic environment for food, and new food habits resulting from changes in lifestyle may be incompatible with traditional food safety measures. The result is an increasing burden of foodborne disease.
A new approach to food safety is urgently needed. In WHO's view this new approach can be found by integrating food safety into primary health care systems, through education and information that focuses on the factors responsible for food contamination and for the survival and growth of foodborne pathogens.
Mr. Chairman, I realize, of course, that your Commission has only limited opportunities to help in integrating food safety into primary health care systems, but I am encouraged by the fact that the Codex Regional Committees are indeed dealing with this topic. As with all problems where a new approach has to be found, a great deal of promotional work has to be done, and through your Coordinating Committees the Commission can contribute even in this are which is, a priori, not your responsibility. I make this point to remind all our Member States that the health-related elements in food standards, and other health-related recommendations, are important prerequisites for food safety, but that, in order to prevent foodborne disease, people have to know how to avoid contamination by, and the growth and survival of, foodborne pathogens. This calls for a concerted effort on the part of those concerned, namely governments, industry and trade, and consumers. Each of these three partners shares responsibility for food safety, and close and coordinated cooperation is necessary before we can expect the situation as regards foodborne diseases to improve.
I should like to touch briefly on one other topic. Development in health is closely related to economic development. For many countries -in particular the developing countries - food export is an important component of their economy. One of the functions of internationally agreed food Standards and codes is to facilitate international trade in food. It is encouraging to see, Mr. Chairman, that your Commission has re-established the existing agreement for cooperation between the GATT Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade and the Codex Alimentarius Commission. It is to be hoped that this renewed relationship, which I note is being considered by this Session of the Commission, will result in improved trading opportunities for all Members, with resulting benefits for economic development.
I should like to close by paying tribute, on behalf of both FAO and WHO, to those governments that have continued to so generously act as host to meetings of your Commission's subsidiary bodies. We owe these governments a deep debt of gratitude. I should also like to express my sincere appreciation to the Geneva Cantonal authorities for their generosity in making available the excellent conference facilities in which this session is being held.
Finally, I should like to wish all of you a very pleasant stay in Geneva, and trust that your deliberations will be enlightening and useful.
Thank you for your attention.
