5. The Committee noted matters arising from the 22nd Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC; June 1997; 45th Session of the Executive Committee of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CCEXEC), the 29th Session of the Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues (CCPR; 7-12 April 1997) and decided to discuss specific concerns under the relevant Agenda Items.
PROVISIONS OF FORTIFICATION ON IODINE, IRON AND VITAMIN A IN THE GUIDELINES OF NUTRITION CLAIMS[3]
6. The Committee accepted the kind offer of the delegation of Thailand to prepare a discussion paper for consideration at the next Session of CCNFSDU.
VITAMIN C FORTIFICATION[4]
7. It was pointed out by several delegations that this issue was already covered by the “General Principles for the Addition of Essential Nutrients to Foods” (CAC/GL 09-1987) in which there were provisions for nutrient fortification. The Committee discussed the need for a clear distinction between use of vitamin C as an additive and for fortification purposes: when used as an additive it should be declared as such and when used for fortification purposes it should be declared in accordance with the General Guidelines on Claims.
8. The Committee took note that there might be a need for a review of the General Principles in order to address the issue of fortification in commodity standards and agreed that a Circular Letter should be prepared in order to ask for governments comments on the necessity of the review.
CONSIDERATION OF METHOD OF ANALYSIS FOR NUTRITION LABELLING[5]
9. The Committee took note that a new method became available and agreed to add the method AOAC 996.06 for the determination of polyunsaturated and saturated fats to the current list of methods.
MATTERS RELATED TO HEALTH AND NUTRITION CLAIMS
10. The Committee noted that the Coordinating Committee for Europe had stressed the importance of matters relating to nutrition and health claims and the need to proceed with work in these areas. In this perspective, the Committee discussed the following matters arising from the Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL).
PROPOSED DRAFT AMENDMENT TO THE GUIDELINES ON NUTRITION LABELLING
11. The Committee considered the request from the CCFL to determine if public health needs required the mandatory labelling of sugars, fibre, saturated fats and sodium when nutrition labelling was applicable. This would be in addition to the current provisions of the Guidelines for Nutrition Labelling, whereby energy value, protein, available carbohydrate and fat must be declared when a nutrient declaration is made.
12. Several delegations supported the current requirements in the Guidelines, pointing out that the declaration of four additional nutrients would be difficult to apply in practice and might confuse the consumer without providing useful information. They pointed out that, from a public health point of view, additional labelling was not the only means to improve the nutritional status of the population, and stressed the need for developing nutrition education so that consumers could actually benefit from nutrition labelling and be able to make an informed choice.
13. The Observer from the European Community, recalled that the approach in the EC was consistent with the current Guidelines, and that the declaration of energy, protein, carbohydrate and fat was mandatory only when a claim was made. Further, if a claim was made on any of sugar, fibre, saturated fat and sodium, the declaration of all four additional nutrients was also becoming compulsory. The Observer proposed that the Committee considered this approach and he was supported by Canada and other delegations.
14. The Delegation of India and the Observer from CI supported mandatory comprehensive labelling for consumers information and education. It could be further expanded including the fibre, sugar, saturated fat and sodium. Some delegations expressed the view that it should be left to national authorities to determine whether additional nutrition labelling was required. The Delegation of the United States supported the inclusion of the four additional nutrients and proposed that further consideration should be given to this matter as it would be useful to provide guidance to governments on the declaration of additional nutrients even on an optional basis.
15. The Committee recognized that there was general support for retaining the current provisions in the Guidelines and agreed to consider this question further at its next session and ask for further comments on this matter.
PROPOSED DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE USE OF HEALTH CLAIMS
16. The Committee had an exchange of views on the request from the CCFL concerning the scientific basis for health claims, and recognized that one of the major issues was the definition of health claims, as the approach to this concept greatly differed from one country to another.
17. Several delegations indicated that they did not support any claim relating to the prevention, cure and treatment of disease but that further consideration could be given to claims relating to the contribution of specific nutrients to health, provided the scientific basis for such claims was clearly established.
18. The Observer from Consumers International expressed its view that health claims should not be permitted. Health claims generally created confusion for consumers, and it was very difficult to define them satisfactorily. The Observer from the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) pointed out that many such claims, some of which were misleading to consumers, were found on the market and that the Committee should seek to address this complex issue as an urgent matter.
19. The Delegation of France indicated that it had prepared a document on the scientific criteria to be used as basis of health claims and offered to communicate it to interested delegations. The Delegation of the United States referred to their experience with health claims at the national level and proposed to gather information from member countries on their experience with the definition of criteria.
20. The Committee recognized that criteria for scientific evidence should be defined in order to substantiate the basis of health claims and agreed to continue its work on this important issue. The Committee welcomed the offer of the delegations of France and the United States to coordinate the preparation of a working document, with the participation of the delegations of Brazil, Denmark, Germany and other interested delegations, for consideration at the next session.
