Codex Nutrition Committee Chooses Malnutrition

Codex Nutrition Committee Chooses Malnutrition

President NHF, Scott Tips discusses NRVs with Malaysian and Benin delegates at CCNFSDU Meeting

Scott C. Tips, Contributor
Activist Post

In a stunning display of nutritional ignorance, three women ram through a
Codex standard that leaves many with sub-optimal nutrition

The Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses
(CCNFSDU) just finished meeting all last week (December 3-7) in Bad
Soden, a small German city near Frankfurt am Main. Nearly 300 delegates
were in attendance, comprised of government functionaries and
international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) representatives.
So, for one week, the assembled delegates – including the INGO
delegation of the National Health Federation (NHF)[1]
–met, discussed, and debated a wide number of food and food-supplement
issues, including the controversial draft Nutrient Reference Values
(NRVs) for vitamins and minerals.

Remember, the food guidelines and standards adopted by this Committee,
and approved by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, are important because
they are then used domestically by numerous countries worldwide and by
virtually all countries in international food trade.

Nutrient Reference Values


Those who have been following the National Health
Federation’s efforts at Codex since the mid-1990s will recall that at
the Codex Nutrition Committee meeting in Dusseldorf, Germany in 2009,
the NHF singlehandedly launched the opposition that stopped the
Australian delegation and others from “dumbing down” these Nutrient
Reference Values.[2]

Australia and its supporters had wrongly proposed that lower NRVs be
adopted for certain important vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin
C. For example, the Proposed Draft Additional or Revised NRVs for
Labelling Purposes in the Codex Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling
suggested reducing the Vitamin A NRV from 800 micrograms down to 550
micrograms, Vitamin C down from an already-abysmally-low 60 milligrams
to 45 milligrams, Thiamin down from 1.4 milligrams to 1.2 milligrams,
Niacin from 18 milligrams down to 15 milligrams, Magnesium down from 300
milligrams to 240 milligrams, and so forth.[3]


These values are already at subsistence levels, and most consumers need
far more than the miserable amounts that Codex would parsimoniously dole
out to them in order to enjoy optimal and robust health. Yet Australia
and its supporters are so fixated on reducing the values even more that
they have blinded themselves to the real science showing the absolute
need for more nutrient intake, not less.

Fortunately, thanks to NHF and its key supporters India and Iraq at the
2009 meeting, the Committee wisely chose not to move forward with any of
those proposed NRVs and instead held the work back for further review
and study. Three years have passed since we first stopped these NRVs
from being adopted, and each year of non-adoption has been a victory for
NHF, and for you.

The Electronic Working Group

Last year, the Committee created an electronic Working Group (eWG) –
chaired by ever-present Australia – to look at the hard numbers for each
of the vitamins and minerals under consideration. NHF was a member of
that group along with twenty other delegations. Working through
e-mails, the Australian-led eWG gradually prepared a report; and the NHF
and other delegations submitted comments throughout 2012, to be
included in that report.

Unfortunately, the United States seemed to have had more of Australia’s
ear than anyone else; and the eWG accordingly submitted to this year’s
Committee a Final Report (over NHF’s objections) that essentially split
the vitamins and minerals into two groups: One that the “eWG” (read
here, Australia and the United States) considered “suitable” for
adoption; and a second group that was considered “unsuitable” and would
need further work.[4]

Strangely enough, this was exactly the approach pushed by the United
States at the 2010 CCNFSDU meeting held in Santiago, Chile, but which
NHF, the European Union, and others had opposed and defeated back then.
Resurrected from its vampire grave just in time for this 2012 meeting,
this plan found support with both Australia and the United States
working hard to ensure that, this time, at least half of the dumbed-down
nutrient values could be pushed forward towards adoption.

The 2012 Meeting

As planned, the Committee once again took up discussion of the
appropriate NRVs for Codex to adopt, using the eWG Report as its
starting point. Of course, the Committee covered other topics, such as
draft guidelines on the addition of essential nutrients to foods and
formulated supplementary foods for older infants and children. The
latter was as hotly-debated a topic as the NRVs.

The
Chairwoman was once again Dr. Pia Noble, appointed by the German Health
Ministry. Co-NHF delegate, Katherine Carroll, spent time during breaks
speaking with Dr. Noble to advance NHF, but it is clear that Dr. Noble
has little regard for the INGOs, who are just nuisances getting in the
way of pushing her agenda forward. Not surprisingly, Dr. Noble is
popular with some of the delegates because, as they put it, “she moves
things along.”

Well, “moving things along” – like “Fly Me To The Moon” – has become
something of a theme song for this Codex Committee. Real nutritional
science is trampled into the mud as the Committee rushes pell-mell to
adopt guidelines and standards without considering the consequences of
what it is doing. Unfortunately only a few delegates realize what is
happening, the majority are content to drift along in concert with and
at the direction of the few leaders.

On the second day of the meeting, just before the lunch break, the
Australian delegate, Janine Lewis, read through her eWG Final Report
while we all listened. I knew what was coming because I had spoken with
her before the meeting had started, asking her to, at the very least,
withhold calcium from her “suitable” list of nutrients that she would
advance for adoption.[5]
When she asked and heard in response that I had only spoken with her
and the U.S. delegate about that, her position visibly hardened and she
told me simply, “Let’s see what the Committee does.”

It became obvious soon enough what the Committee would do, as I pushed
the button on my microphone to speak when the meeting resumed after the
lunch break. As in 2009, I was the second person to speak! This is
highly unusual since the Codex procedure is to let all of the country
delegations speak first, and only then allow the INGOs to speak. Being
second meant that there were few who wanted to speak out on this issue.

Barbara Schneeman, the U.S. delegate, had spoken immediately before me
and said the U.S. “liked these [NRV] figures” and thus liked the idea of
advancing the “suitable” nutrients[6]
to the Commission for adoption. With that, my microphone illuminated
red and it was my turn to speak. I told the Committee that, except for
calcium (whose value had been increased while magnesium’s had been
decreased, the exact opposite of what should happen with these twin
minerals), the Australian figures were all too low, that the NRVs were
being reduced by anywhere from 15% to 25%, and questioned why Australia
was always choosing the lowest values it could find, even lower than
what the guidelines would call for. The safety of vitamins and
minerals, I argued, was unparalleled, so that there could be no problem
with having higher levels of these nutrients. Moreover, lowering the
NRVs was inconsistent with Codex’s announced goal of preventing
malnutrition.

NHF delegate Kat Carroll conferring with Benin and Malaysian delegates

The International Alliance of Dietary Food Supplements
Associations (IADSA) and the International Dairy Federation (IDF) spoke
up after NHF, both attacking the proposed values of a specific nutrient –
IADSA advocating a higher value for Biotin and IDF a lower value for
Calcium (because the higher value would mean that milk could no longer
be considered a “rich” source of calcium). The Council for Responsible
Nutrition (CRN), to the confusion of many, simply said “We would like to
stress the scientific underpinnings of these numbers.” Did that mean
they supported the values, or opposed them? It sounded more like the
former, but we could not tell.

As expected, Australia responded in defense of the dumbed-down NRVs; and
NHF then challenged those numbers yet again. But this time, the
Malaysian, Iranian, and South African delegates spoke up one right after
another in strong support of NHF and in favor of more sensible NRVs. It
was heartening to hear these three women speak out for sensible
nutrition based upon real science.[7]

NHF and IADSA spoke up again, respectively opposing the adoption of any
of these values and, in the case of IADSA, the Biotin value. The
European Union (EU) delegate, Basil Mathioudakis, quite sensibly asked
the Chairwoman what logic did it make to advance some and not all of the
NRVs at the same time. Switzerland disagreed with the EU, but NHF
spoke up in support of the EU’s question and suggested that the
so-called “suitable” NRVs be held back, or at the very least some of the
more questionable ones such as Calcium and Vitamin K. IADSA, in turn,
pointed out that the Committee was going against its own guidelines by
not selecting the proper value, a higher value, for Biotin.

But the Chairwoman, Pia Noble, was having none of that and insisted that
these “suitable” NRVs were going forward despite the substantial
opposition. In a last-ditch effort, I asked the Chairwoman to at least
move the Vitamin K, Biotin, and Calcium from the “suitable” Table to the
“unsuitable” category. Not only was the answer “no,” but Dr. Noble
decided that since opposition might grow against these so-called
“suitable” NRVs, then they should be advanced along the path of adoption
as quickly as possible. So, she unilaterally undertook to advance them
along the 8-Step adoption process to Step 5/8, where they now hover on
the edge of full adoption by the Commission itself next year.

As an added insult, the following day, the Committee discussed another
Agenda Item, that is, revisions to the Codex General Principles for the
Addition of Essential Nutrients to Foods, which in small but important
part dealt with the question of whether Codex should or could state that
nutrients can prevent or reduce the risk of disease. Amazingly enough,
many delegations spoke out against such language. Only the U.S.
delegation and two INGOs (NHF and GAIN) defended this statement.

Post-Script

The Troika of Pia Noble, Janine Lewis, and Barbara Schneeman succeeded
in finally pushing forward eleven of the nineteen vitamins and minerals
further along the road to adoption. At the Codex Alimentarius
Commission meeting next July there will be a further push to adopt these
eleven vitamins and minerals and set their low (except for Calcium)
values in stone. Barbara Schneeman, the U.S. delegate, will not be
there as her retirement was announced at the CCNFSDU meeting.
Fortunately, there is still an opportunity to derail this effort to
steam-roller consumers into ill-health and NHF intends to make the most
of it.

In addition, the Chairwoman reauthorized the eWG to continue its work on
the “unsuitable” nutrient values and the NHF is taking an active part
in that working group’s activities. The eWG will report back to the
CCNFSDU when it meets again next Fall in Germany.

Legacy

Barbara Schneeman’s legacy at Codex has been an unfortunate one of
pushing big corporate interests while thumbing her nose at consumers.
Whether it was her obstinate opposition to adopting a guideline for
labeling GMO foods (at the Codex Committee on Food Labelling) or her
questionable support for dumbing-down NRVs (at CCNFSDU), she has
unfortunately been too often on the wrong side of the issues. Perhaps,
in the interests of better health for consumers worldwide, her
retirement from Codex could have happened a few years earlier. While
this might sound uncharitable, inflicting ill-health upon billions of
humans is far less charitable still.

Final Thoughts

The
Troika has cleverly pushed forward some of the nutrient NRVs in the
hope that the others must inevitably follow along. Whatever their
agenda might truly be, the sad fact is that consumer health will suffer
from their thoughtless and stercoraceous actions.

The problem facing consumers is not vitamin-and-mineral toxicity, it is
widespread deficiencies of those nutrients. Too many Codex delegates
are stuck in the mindset that human populations only need bare
subsistence nutrition; that is, that nutrition that merely keeps them
breathing and their feet moving one step at a time. The concept that
there is a greater level of nutrition – of optimal nutrition – is as
foreign to them as space flight would be to Stone Age people. They fail
to comprehend that nutrients at proper levels can actually enable
individuals to function at more proficient levels and without those
diseases that afflict sub-optimally fed populations.

The disservice done to Humanity by those too lazy to think and then act
is so profound as to be disheartening to many others. Many among us
question the motivations of those who want to only push a guideline or
standard forward to final adoption simply to “get it done and out of the
way.” Is their thinking really as shallow as that? Maybe we better
hope it is, as that is an easier mindset to deal with than one of active
malevolence.

[1]
The National Health Federation delegation consisted of Scott Tips and
Katherine A. Carroll. The NHF-Germany Executive Director, Petra Weiss,
took ill and could not attend this year. Attorney Jeannine Stewart and
others helped Scott Tips draft the NHF’s submission paper arguing for
higher levels of NRVs. This NHF paper was published by the German Codex
Secretariat as Conference Room Document 13 (CRD 13) and made available
to all of the CCNFSDU delegates at the meeting and can be found on-line
atwww.thenhf.com/codex/. All photographs in this article were taken by Katherine Carroll.

[2]
Not to be confused with Maximum Upper Permitted Limits, NRVs are
nothing more than souped-up RDAs. These are numerical values assigned
to specified nutrients that will supposedly cover 98% of the
population’s nutritional needs for that nutrient. By referring to the
NRV for a vitamin or mineral, the consumer is supposed to know whether
he or she is getting an adequate intake of that nutrient, even if, as in
the case of Vitamin C, 100% of the NRV is defined as 45 milligrams!
These values are claimed to be set according to rigorous scientific
evidence; but, in reality, “science” at Codex levels is often nothing
more than a flimsy set of assumptions and erroneous conclusions cobbled
together to justify keeping consumers “safe” from “dangerous” vitamins
and minerals.

[3]
The proposed Codex NRVs are: Vitamin A (dropped from 800 mcg to 550
mcg); Vitamin D (5 mcg or 200 IUs); Vitamin E (8.8 mg); Vitamin K (60
mcg); Vitamin C (dropped from 60 mg to 45 mg); Thiamin (dropped from 1.4
to 1.2 mg); Riboflavin (dropped from 1.6 mg to 1.2 mg); Niacin (dropped
from 18 mg to 15 mg); Vitamin B6 (dropped from 2 mg to 1.3 mg); Folate
(raised to 400 mcg); Vitamin B12 (2.4 mcg); Pantothenate (5 mg); Biotin
(30 mcg); Calcium (raised from 800 mg to 1000 mg); Magnesium (dropped
from 300 mg to 240 mg); Iodine (150 mcg); Iron (14.3-43.1 mg depending
upon bioavailability); Zinc (dropped from 15 mg to 3.6-11.9, depending
upon bioavailability); Selenium (30 mcg); Phosphorus (700 mg); Chloride
(2.3 grams); Copper (900 mcg); Fluoride (3.5 mg); Manganese (2.1 mg);
Chromium (30 mcg); and Molybdenum (45 mcg).

[4] See CCNFSDU document number CX/NFSDU 12/34/8.

[5]
NHF has been opposed to Australia’s desire to raise the Calcium NRV
from 800 mg to 1000 mg for several reasons. First of all, it is
infantile nutritional science to think that health can be improved by
raising Calcium intake while simultaneously lowering Magnesium intake
(here, from 300 mg to 240 mg!). Magnesium and Calcium are twin minerals
and raising Calcium intake while lowering Magnesium intake is a certain
recipe for disaster, as it invites the calcium to settle into the soft
tissue like the skin and arteries and not go to where it properly
belongs, in the bones and teeth. Secondly, by fixing the NRV for
Calcium, the Committee has limited the range in which the Committee may
now set the NRV for Magnesium. If the Committee is to follow sound
nutritional science, then the Magnesium NRV cannot now be set any lower
than 500 mg. That is a great distance from the measly 240 mg value that
the Chairwoman and Australia would like to establish.

[6] Vitamin K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenate, Biotin, Calcium, and Iodine.

[7]
These three strong-willed delegates are: Fatima Sulong (Malaysia),
Atefeh Fooladi Moghaddam (Iran), and Andiswa Ngqaka (South Africa), who
resisted the strong urgings of the Chairwoman to simply look the other
way and advance the dumbed-down NRVs. The three women took an unpopular
stand and are true heroines, and to be much commended for speaking out
for health.

Source:-
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/12/codex-nutrition-committee-chooses.html