NOVEMBER 2019
Probiotics and Prioritization
CRN-I efforts to shape Codex work prioritization, probiotic guidelines pay off during November Nutrition Committee meeting
CRN’s Jim Griffiths, Ph.D., joined international public health experts last week in Düsseldorf, Germany, attending the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) meeting to engage on two key issues: 1) harmonized probiotic guidelines for use in food and dietary supplements, and 2) a prioritization mechanism to better manage the work of the CCNFSDU. On the topic of probiotics, extensive lobbying by CRN, IADSA, Food Supplements Europe (FSE) and others led to a request by the Committee for Argentina to redraft and resubmit a probiotic guidelines proposal. It effectively suspends decisive action on probiotics for this year. This outcome allows CRN, and others in opposition to the original proposal, to address initial concerns about duplicative, broad and/or unnecessary guidelines that could create their own trade barrier for probiotics and create restrictive precedent for other supplement ingredients.
Dominating subsequent meeting proceedings, the Committee resolved to create a working group charged with developing and implementing a new work prioritization mechanism in the next year. CRN previously submitted comments on Committee workload prioritization, noting that such a process should be simple, transparent, science-based and objective, and must consider the impact of any new work on public health, international trade and nutrition. CRN will submit additional comments and participate in working group deliberations. The Committee indicated that it would consider a new proposal for probiotics guidelines for agenda inclusion under the new work prioritization mechanism. Contact Jim Griffiths with questions.
More from CRN-I
CRN-I symposium spotlights health promotion, features WHO expert perspectives
CRN-International (CRN-I) held its annual symposium on Thursday, Nov. 28, in conjunction with the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) meeting in Düsseldorf, Germany, highlighting the crucial role of health promotion in public health policy and as a top global priority. The agenda included two presentations from World Health Organization (WHO) experts offering authoritative insights on the definition and measurement of health promotion, along with additional speakers further discussing translating science to policy. For the third year in a row, CRN-I and WHO collaborated in providing symposium attendees with leading scientific and policy perspectives on a wide range of topics, with the organizations’ alignment on health promotion signaling a significant step forward for nutrition sciences. Presentations from the 2019 symposium will be available soon on CRN-I’s website, and proceedings will be published in 2020. Contact Jim Griffiths with questions.