As can be seen, therefore, Dr. Keller stated that action taken by Codex should be considered “within the framework of its operational mandate”, and merely invited the Codex Alimentarius Commission to recommend that WHO and FAO should “produce a more focussed document for consideration by CCFL and CCNFSDU.”

World Health Assembly Resolution on Infant and Young Children Nutrition

The third discussion at the Codex meeting in Rome that has seemingly been widely misreported relates to a debate regarding a recent World Health Assembly Resolution, WHA58.32, on Infant and Young Children Nutrition, whereby the Director General of WHO was requested to:

During this debate, Dr. Schlundt, of the WHO, described how the Resolution, passed in May 2005, requires the Director-General of WHO to report to the World Health Assembly (WHA) every two years - not each year as has been claimed - on progress in the consideration of matters referred to the Codex Alimentarius Commission for its action.

Of course, although this WHA Resolution was clearly passed in the context of nutrition for infants and young children its’ wording indicates that the Director-General’s report will encompass the entire range of work carried out at Codex.

Nevertheless, at no time during the Codex Alimentarius Commission’s debate on this issue was this development discussed as being either directly or indirectly related to the WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. Indeed, the WHO Global Strategy was not even mentioned during this debate. As such, although the Director-General’s report would clearly include mention of any work carried out by Codex in relation to the Global Strategy, it would be incorrect to assume that the two issues, the report and the Global Strategy, are directly related.

We would therefore contend that the claim that “Codex will make a yearly report to the World Health Assembly about its progress in implementing the WHO Strategy” is unfortunately somewhat misleading.

Conclusion

To summarize, WHO and FAO did not express “significant displeasure with the anti-health approach to nutrition taken by Codex over the past 4 decades” at this meeting. Moreover, neither did they state that “little contribution to human health had been made by Codex”, or that “things would be different in the future.”

In addition, although a paper prepared in advance of the meeting by WHO and FAO had suggested that consideration could be given to the possibility of considering amendments to the terms of reference of CCFL and/or CCNFSDU, this matter was not brought up at the Codex meeting itself. Indeed, and as the transcripts and recordings from the discussions on the Global Strategy clearly demonstrate, both the UK (speaking for the 25 countries of the European Union) and the United States appeared to be of the opinion that the current Codex mandate should be retained.