Report of the 33rd Session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and ...

REP 12/NFSDU 6PRINCIPLES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND REVIEW OF NRVS FOR LABELLINGPURPOSES FOR NUTRIENTS ASSOCIATED WITH RISK OF DIET-RELATEDNONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES (Agenda Item 4)General Principles for Establishing Nutrient Reference Values for Nutrients Associated with Risk <strong>of</strong>Diet-Related Noncommunicable Diseases for General Population (NRVs-NCD) (Agenda Item 4a) 539. The <strong>Committee</strong> recalled that its last session had agreed to return <strong>the</strong> document to Step 3 and that ithad established an eWG chaired by <strong>the</strong> United States <strong>of</strong> America and co-chaired by Chile and Thailand toprepare a revised document for its next session.40. The Delegation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> United Kingdom informed <strong>the</strong> <strong>Committee</strong> that its comments in CX/NFSDU11/33/6-Add.2 were not intended for consideration at <strong>the</strong> <strong>Committee</strong> and <strong>the</strong>refore <strong>the</strong> <strong>Committee</strong> noted that<strong>the</strong> comments were withdrawn.41. The delegation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> United States <strong>of</strong> America, as <strong>the</strong> chair <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> eWG, introduced <strong>the</strong> documentCX/NFSDU 11/33/6 and informed that <strong>the</strong> eWG had considered all main aspects that had not beenconsidered at <strong>the</strong> last session <strong>of</strong> CCNFSDU. The eWG also identified additional issues to be considered at<strong>the</strong> <strong>Committee</strong> including <strong>the</strong> potential for more than one NRV, NRV for protein, consolidation <strong>of</strong> annexes onNRV-NCD and vitamin and mineral NRV principles and presentation <strong>of</strong> information on NRVs in <strong>the</strong>Guidelines on Nutrition Labelling.42. The <strong>Committee</strong> expressed its thanks to <strong>the</strong> United States <strong>of</strong> America, Chile and Thailand and to <strong>the</strong>working group for this comprehensive work and agreed to consider <strong>the</strong> revised document section by sectionin <strong>the</strong> following order: section 1, section 3, section 2 and additional issues. Besides editorial amendments,<strong>the</strong> <strong>Committee</strong> agreed with <strong>the</strong> following changes.1. Preamble43. In <strong>the</strong> third sentence, <strong>the</strong> <strong>Committee</strong> agreed to start with “governments are encouraged” forconsistency with <strong>the</strong> Annex on vitamin and mineral NRV principles and to insert “diet-related” before“noncommunicable diseases” for consistency in <strong>the</strong> document.44. The <strong>Committee</strong> noted that <strong>the</strong>se principles would apply not only to <strong>the</strong> establishment <strong>of</strong> NutrientReference Values in national level, but also to <strong>the</strong> establishment <strong>of</strong> <strong>Codex</strong> Nutrient Reference Values forlabelling purposes, as stated in <strong>the</strong> preamble.3.1 Criteria for selection <strong>of</strong> nutrients45. Regarding <strong>the</strong> first bullet point, some delegations supported to retain “probable” because “probable”scientific evidence, which is weaker than “convincing” evidence, was still strong according to <strong>the</strong> currentdefinition in this document, more evidence should be used for establishing <strong>Codex</strong> NRVs, more NRVs wouldbe established with “probable” evidence, and it would be <strong>the</strong> only way for developing countries to refer to<strong>the</strong> <strong>Codex</strong> NRVs.46. O<strong>the</strong>r delegations did not support <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> “probable” evidence to establish NRVs because <strong>Codex</strong>texts should be consistent with <strong>the</strong> provisions for <strong>the</strong> scientific substantiation <strong>of</strong> health claims, <strong>the</strong> definition<strong>of</strong> “probable” in this document would be applicable only to cancer, not to o<strong>the</strong>r non-communicable diseases,and had not been used in any FAO/WHO report. The establishment <strong>of</strong> NRVs was not overly restrictedwithout using “probable” evidence, as several NRVs could be considered on <strong>the</strong> basis <strong>of</strong> convincingevidence.47. The Representative <strong>of</strong> WHO indicated that new terms would replace <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> probable andconvincing scientific evidence and <strong>the</strong> inclusion <strong>of</strong> "probable" scientific evidence was in line with <strong>the</strong> actualuse <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> term in <strong>the</strong> older report which was consistent with <strong>the</strong> definition being considered by <strong>the</strong><strong>Committee</strong> and that <strong>the</strong> sentence included in <strong>the</strong> footnote may take care <strong>of</strong> concerns <strong>of</strong> health claims.5REP 11/NFSDU Appendix IV, CL 2010/53-NFSDU, CX/NFSDU 11/33/5 (Comments in reply to CL 2010/53-NFSDU <strong>of</strong>Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, European Union, Malaysia, Mexico and United States <strong>of</strong> America), CX/NFSDU 11/33/6(<strong>Report</strong> <strong>of</strong> electronic working group), CX/NFSDU 11/33/6-Add.1 (Comments <strong>of</strong> Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Japan,Malaysia, Norway, Philippines, Thailand, United States <strong>of</strong> America, Uruguay, ICBA, IDF and NHF), CX/NFSDU 11/33/6-Add.2(Comments <strong>of</strong> Canada, European Union, Mexico and Nicaragua), CRD 4 (Comments <strong>of</strong> Mali), CRD 6 (Comments <strong>of</strong> Australia,Nicaragua, Turkey and FoodDrinkEurope), CRD 10 (Comments <strong>of</strong> Indonesia), CRD 14 (Comments <strong>of</strong> Jamaica), CRD 17(Comments <strong>of</strong> Malaysia)