50. The Commission had before it document ALINORM 85/6 which reported on Joint FAO/ WHO activities; FAO activities; and WHO activities separately.
JOINT FAO/WHO ACTIVITIES
51. The Commission was informed of the activities of the Joint FAO/WHO Meetings on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) which had taken place since the Commission's 15th Session. The JMPR had examined a total of some 100 pesticides including some 10 pesticides not evaluated previously. Principles of toxicological testing and evaluation and methods of arriving at estimates of pesticide residues intake were also discussed. Yearly sessions of JMPR would continue in the future maintaining the present rythm of activity. Streamlining of the publication of the reports and ‘Evaluations’ of the JMPR using word processing and possibly adjustment of responsibility for publication were being considered in an attempt to ensure early issue of these documents.
52. The FAO had prepared an “International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides” which had been endorsed by the FAO Committee on Agriculture and the FAO Council. The Code would be submitted to the FAO Conference for endorsement. The Code made reference to various FAO guidelines relating to pesticides.
53. Since the 15th Session of the Commission two meetings of JECFA, the 28th in 1984, and the 29th in 1985 had been held. Relevant details of the 28th Meeting were available in document ALINORM 85/6. The Commission noted particularly that JECFA had considered the safety of certain substances migrating into food from packaging materials. (See also paras. 92–95). At its 29th meeting, JECFA had specifically considered certain matters referred to it by the Codex Committee on Food Additives and had devoted a section of its report to responding to these questions. The Commission welcomed the close cooperation between JECFA and CCFA in this regard.
54. It was also noted that arrangements had been made for the preparation of a brief summary report to be distributed shortly after each JECFA Meeting. This would provide accurate and up-to-date information for FAO and WHO Member States, Codex Contact Points, consumers and industry representatives and others who had need of the information arising from the JECFA meetings.
55. The Commission noted that as a result of the invitation of the Directors-General of FAO, WHO and IAEA, an International Consultative Group on Food Irradiation had been established in 1984 in order to:
evaluate global development in the field of food irradiation,
provide a focal point of advice on application of food irradiation to member states and the organizations, and
furnish information through the organizations to the Joint FAO/IAEA/WHO Expert Committee on Wholesomeness of Irradiated Foods and the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
56. At its first meeting in December 1984, the Group decided that priority should be given to the promotion of international trade in irradiated food and to this end a Task Force, consisting of food control officials, consumer organizations and irradiation control authorities, had been established to advise the Group on the appropriate means to promote trade in irradiated foods. The Task Force would meet in October 1985.
57. The Joint FAO/WHO Food Contamination Monitoring Programme had been established under the Global Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS) of the United Nations Environment Programme to coordinate and stimulate international monitoring activities at national, regional and global levels for the early detection and control of pollution in the environment. A description of the Programme's activities was contained in ALINORM 85/6. The Commission particularly noted the work on monitoring levels of certain pesticides, heavy metals and aflatoxins and also the publication of Guidelines for the Study of Dietary Intakes of Chemical Contaminants which had been prepared under the auspices of the Programme. It was noted in particular that the data collected under the Programme were available to the subsidiary bodies of the Commission for use in establishing maximum levels of contaminants in commodity standards.
58. The Commission was informed that a publication entitled “Guidelines for Can Manufacturers and Food Canners”, which was intended to assist food processors in developing countries to control problems of contamination of canned processed foods by lead and tin had been prepared and would become available towards the end of 1985.
59. In order to assist Member States in developing and running food safety and control programmes, FAO and WHO were developing Guiding Principles for Food Safety Evaluation. This publication would deal more with managerial aspects and should be used in conjunction with the already existing and more technical Guidelines for Developing an Effective National Food Control System as well as the Guidelines for Establishing or Strengthening National Food Contamination Monitoring Programmes. The two organizations expected a provisional edition of the Guiding Principles to be available by the end of 1985 when it would be distributed to as wide an audience as possible. A final edition was expected to be published in 1987 to 1988, taking into account the experience of Member States during the use of the provisional document.
60. The Commission was informed of specific activities relating to cooperation with member governments particularly those of developing countries, which were described in detail in Part B of ALINORM 85/6 and which were carried out by the FAO Food Quality and Consumer Protection Group in the Food Quality and Standards Service;
Food Control Assistance to Developing Countries including promotion of coherent national food quality control systems and the organization of national food control strategy workshops remained a high priority. It had been proposed that the FAO Committee on Agriculture discuss in detail at its next session in early 1987 the “role of food quality control and standards in food security, health and trade”.
Food Contamination Surveys and Training in Food Contamination Control were carried out within the overall efforts to strengthen food control systems in developing countries. They also supported the activities of the FAO/WHO Food Contamination Monitoring Programme. Regional activities in Asia and Africa had been supplemented by additional activities in specific developing countries.
Training which continued to receive high priority would be extended to include a course in maintenance and repair of laboratory equipment for technicians from Francophone Africa, and a training course on mycotoxin analysis and control for countries in the sub-region of Central America. A regional training course for food inspectors would be held within the biennium in Sri Lanka and approaches had been made to funding agencies to establish a regional network of food control training centres in South and South East Asia. Training at a specialized level for persons working with mycotoxins had been carried out with UNEP support in the USSR in 1984 and 1985.
Food handling activities were directed at ensuring safety, quality and wholesomeness of food at the village and household levels thereby improving nutritional status of the population and promoting consumer protection and reducing food losses. Workshops had been held in Asia and Africa to direct governments' attention to the priorities needed for action. Some projects had been initiated in Asia and Africa.
Publications of guidelines and manuals covering different aspects of food control and food safety continued to be prepared and issued widely, also through Codex Contact Points.
61. The Commission was reminded that WHO was a decentralized organization and that its headquarters was responsible for global and interregional activities while its regional offices were responsible for regional and country level activities. Accordingly, the Commission, being a global body, would receive a report on global and interregional activities while the Regional Coordinating Committees of the CAC would also be briefed on regional and country level activities.
62. The objective of WHO in the field of food safety was to cooperate with member states in an attempt to reduce, inter alia, foodborne mortality and morbidity. Some of the more recent major activities included the following:
Campylobacter jejeuni had only recently been recognized as an important causative agent of foodborne enteric infection in man which was mainly transmitted via raw milk and undercooked or recontaminated poultry. Three programmes of WHO (Diarrhoeal Disease Control, Food Safety, Zoonoses) therefore organized a consultation to review this rather new problem and to identify technologies to prevent the disease in man. The report of the consultation was available from WHO/HQ (VPH/CDD/FOS/84.1).
The Commission was informed that WHO had contacted several food industries to discuss possibilities for cooperation, mainly in the field of food safety education of consumers. The representatives of industry, during an informal consultation in Geneva on 1 and 2 May 1984, had welcomed this initiative of WHO and had indicated that they might be able to assist WHO in its efforts to improve the food safety at consumer level. WHO was now in the process of elaborating a programme and budget for consideration by the industry.
The Commission was also informed that WHO/HQ, jointly with PAHO, had undertaken a pilot project, analysing hazards and critical points of domestic food preparation, with particular emphasis on weaning food preparation in Peru. This type of work was seen as the technical basis for the development of appropriate health education programmes, which had to be based on knowledge of prevailing food handling practices, current beliefs and the cultural values attached to these practices, as well as the social and economic roles they fulfill.
Under the aegis of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, a surveillance programme for the control of foodborne infections and intoxications had been launched in 1980 with the overall objective of providing support to European countries in the prevention and control of foodborne diseases. Under this programme, a manual on surveillance of foodborne diseases had been prepared. Although this programme was essentially tailored to the needs and conditions of European countries, it could be seen as a model for several other (sub) regions of the world where epidemiological studies, and in particular surveillance of foodborne diseases were overdue.
Concerning Islamic requirements for food of animal origin, reference was invited to the report which had been given by the Secretariat to the 31st Session of the Executive Committee (ALINORM 85/3, paras. 171– 175). The Executive Committee had, at that time, been informed that WHO and the Muslim World League were collaborating on this topic. The Commission was now informed that the meeting of internationally recognized Islamic scholars addressing this problem, which had originally been scheduled for December 1984, was now expected to take place in Saudi Arabia in the second half of 1985. The possibility of attendance of observers was still under consideration.
Activities related to food safety/food hygiene had been carried out by WHO since the very early days of the Organization. Many technical papers, reports of meetings, monographs, etc., had been published since. The WHO catalogue of official publications listed several of these food safety publications, but by no means all. Therefore, the Secretariat had prepared a list of selected WHO and Joint FAO/WHO publications on food safety/food hygiene which was available to all members of the Commission.
The Commission was reminded that several WHO programmes carried out activities which were of immediate interest to national food safety and food control staffs and in this way to the work of the CAC. In this context, reference had also been made to the Environmental Health Criteria Documents, to the International Digest of Health Legislation and to the follow-up work undertaken concerning the International Code of Breast-Milk Substitutes and the Resolution WHA 34.23 on Nutritional Value and Safety of Products specifically intended for Infants and Children.
63. The Commission took note of the FAO and WHO activities complementary to its work and stressed their importance for furthering the Commission's objectives. The special need for assistance to developing countries in the implementation of their national programmes for ensuring the safety and quality of food, consumer protection and the recommendations of the Commission was emphasized.
64. The Delegation of Algeria referred to the work on improvement of food handling as related to food quality and safety, and recommended that information and extension activities which could be used by governments in training food handlers and educating the public in regard to food safety, should be developed in order to ensure that the basic principles of food hygiene were known and understood at all levels.
65. The Chief of the FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme reported that the General Assembly of the United Nations, at its last session, had adopted, through a Resolution, the UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection and called on member governments to apply the Guidelines. The Commission was informed that the Guidelines referred to certain specific products of high significance, food being one of these. Under this section on food, the Guidelines recognized the work of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and stressed that Codex standards be implemented.
66. The observer from ISO drew attention to a comprehensive report prepared by Hungary on the work of ISO/TC 34 relevant to the work of the Commission. This report was made available to members of the Commission. He pointed to the long-standing and close collaboration between ISO and Codex which had proved to be fruitful and had prevented duplication of work in areas such as analysis, sampling, terminology and specifications for foods not covered by Codex standards. ISO provided the Secretariat for the ‘Inter Agency Meeting’ an advisory body for the Codex Committee on Methods of Analysis and Sampling. Other ISO technical committees working in the fields of starch hydrolysis products, water quality and chemical methods of analysis were also related to the work of Codex. The ISO observer expressed his satisfaction that the question of possible future collaboration between ISO and Codex in the publication of Codex standards as ISO standards remained open.
67. The Commission noted that the Executive Committee at its 32nd Session had discussed this matter and had concluded that the Codex Secretariat should first review the distribution system of Codex documents before entering into further discussions with ISO on the question of ISO adopting and publishing Codex standards. The Commission concurred with this view.
68. The delegation of Hungary underlined the above statement of the observer from ISO and stressed the need for a continued and even closer collaboration between Codex and ISO/TC 34.
69. The observer from OAU stressed the importance of work in the field of pesticide residues and gave a brief outline of the work of his organization in making the 50 OAU member governments more sensitive to the need to control pesticide residues in order to protect consumers and treated crops; in the creation of regional infrastructures; in the formation of national plant protection services; in the organization of regional conferences and seminars on pesticide residue matters; in the organization of training courses; in the creation of a network of pesticide residue analytical laboratories through an inter-African project and in the establishment of an African committee of experts under the constitution of the Inter-African Plant Protection Council of the OAU.
70. He urged greater collaboration between FAO and WHO and all interested African regional organizations and his organization in the field of pesticide residue control. He also thanked the Commission for making efforts to find the means to assist developing countries in attending Codex sessions.
71. The observer from IAEA pointed out that the adoption of a Codex General Standard for Irradiated Foods had contributed greatly in stimulating governments in taking action concerning the regulation of food irradiation. However, it appeared that governments were not following the regulatory approach suggested by Codex and that action by governments was not harmonized. Furthermore, many governments were not taking any action at all. He informed the Commission of the recommendation of a Joint FAO/IAEA Advisory Group held in November 1984 which had recommended that countries should give a broad clearance to the process of food irradiation and should also consider ways of permitting the importation of irradiated foods, even if they themselves were not actually irradiating foods. Declaration of the fact of irradiation on the label should not be mandatory but should be left to individual countries. The report of the Advisory Group was made available.
72. The observer from IAEA indicated that IAEA was active in developing the irradiation process and had programmes either in progress or planned to transfer this technology to developing countries in the regions of Asia, Latin America and Africa.
73. The observer of the UNECE expressed his organization's appreciation of the work of Codex and indicated that Codex standards were automatically taken into account by his Organization. Cooperation between Codex and the UNECE was good as evidenced by a close collaboration at the Secretariat level and the existence of Joint ECE/Codex Groups of Experts in the fields of fruit and vegetable products. The UNECE had decided to proceed with the standardization of certain tropical fresh fruits noting that the Codex Alimentarius Commission had decided earlier not to take up the subject for the time being. On the other hand, work on certain dry and dried fruits and vegetables had been suspended pending developments in the Codex Committee on Cereals, Pulses and Legumes. He outlined briefly work undertaken by the UNECE in the standardization of food products.
74. The observer of the EEC gave a broad outline of the work of the EEC in attempting to remove technical barriers to trade, consumer information and monitoring and control of food. The aim of the EEC was to ensure the unimpeded movement of the large volume of food in European trade and the protection of the consumer.
75. The observer from the IDF pointed to the great number of international standards developed by IDF in the field of chemical and microbiological analysis as well as standards of identity for milk and milk products. These had been established through some 40 groups of experts in IDF which are still active in these fields. Many of the IDF/ISO/AOAC standards, made available to the Joint FAO/WHO Committee of Government Experts on the Code of Principles concerning Milk and Milk Products, had been taken over by Codex. The three organizations had established a high standard in international cooperation resulting in mutual benefit to all including the Codex Alimentarius.
76. The observer of ASEAN informed the Commission of several on-going activities within ASEAN countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) as good examples of technical cooperation among developing countries. These activities had the objectives to promote in the ASEAN region, the development of food processing technologies and industries, and of the quality and safety of food products, increasing the utilization of local food raw materials for local and export markets and facilitation of the transfer of food processing technologies through pilot studies and information exchange. He described some of the common projects being pursued by the ASEAN countries related to food quality evaluation, food analysis, raw materials, food standards and regulations.
77. The observer from COPAL indicated his organization's great interest in the work of the Commission. In view of the difficulties COPAL countries faced in attending Codex sessions for various reasons, the Secretariat of COPAL had been empowered to speak on behalf of these countries in representing the interests of cocoa producing countries. The observer of COPAL wished this to be noted in relation to the role of observers attending Codex sessions.
78. The observer from the CE informed the Commission about recent work especially by the Council of Europe (Partial Agreement) in the protection of the consumer and harmonization of national health regulations. CE recommendations could be in the form of declaration of policy or common directives aimed at those responsible for the establishment of such policies. The work of the Council of Europe in the field of natural flavouring materials (the Blue Book) was noted in relation to the work of Codex. The 6th Edition of a publication on ‘Pesticides’ containing recommendations directed at national authorities and the industry took into account Codex recommendations and those of FAO, the EEC and EPPO. This publication had been developed with the help of GIFAP and CEPA. Close collaboration existed between CE and the EEC as could be seen in the work of these two organizations in the field of packaging materials.
79. The observer from the Council of Europe indicated his Organization's interest in close collaboration with all interested organizations in order to avoid duplication of work.
80. The delegation of Kenya indicated that governments took into account the work of international organizations and that, therefore, overlapping of work must be avoided. The delegation referred to the work of the African Regional Standards Organization (ARSO) which had the responsibility of elaborating African regional standards for food products and expressed the hope that the work of this organization and Codex would be coordinated. The delegation expressed its appreciation of the efforts of the Commission in seeking ways and means of assisting developing countries in attending Codex sessions. It invited International Organizations to arrange seminars on food quality control such as those organized by IDF.
81. The Secretariat informed the Commission of discussions between the Secretariats of ARSO and the Codex concerning arrangements for collaboration in order to prevent duplication of work while promoting food standards activities in Africa. In view of ARSO's general mandate to elaborate African regional standards on the one hand, and the activities of Codex on the other, the Secretariat was of the opinion that duplication of work in the food area might be difficult to avoid, particularly in view of the fact that ARSO wished to use Codex standards as an input in the development of ARSO standards.
82. The Commission was also informed of the views of Members of the 32nd Session of the Executive Committee on this subject. The Executive Committee had recommended that the Secretariat should continue to pursue the matter of collaboration with ARSO, in order to avoid duplication of work. The Executive Committee had also recommended that ARSO should explore the possibility of not entering into the field of establishment of food standards. The Executive Committee had also recommended that member states in Africa should be made aware of the problems which may arise in this area.
83. The Commission concurred with the recommendations of the Executive Committee and requested the Secretariat to take appropriate action to follow up the matter.
