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Under overcast skies but with Winter’s icy grip not yet present, the 47th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) met for six days from November 25-30, 2024, in Geneva, Switzerland at the CICG hall. CAC Chairman Steve Wearne presided over his last meeting as he was unfortunately termed out after three years and could not remain Chairman any longer despite the wishes of most delegations there.
The meeting began on Monday, November 25th, with several speeches, the first of which was by WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, who spent the first part of his speech beating the tired old drum of “climate change.” After the speech-making, the rest of the meeting followed its familiar pattern of being well-run and on schedule as Mr. Wearne methodically took the assembled delegates through one agenda item after another. Numerous food standards were considered and either adopted or else advanced up the eight-step process towards final adoption.
The National Health Federation (NHF) – in attendance at these Commission meetings for over two decades as a Codex-accredited INGO – was primarily interested in the food standards being discussed for aspartame, pesticide residues, and the new work proposed by India to set global standards for dietary supplements.[1] Of those three, the aspartame food standard setting an Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for the sweetener came up for discussion first.
Aspartame Food Standard
Let’s be clear. To most of the Codex delegates, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) is a science God, and they continually genuflect at its altar. And any heretic who dares to question JECFA science risks excommunication, or at least public humiliation. At a minimum, with group-think rampant at these meetings, anyone challenging JECFA science has got to be mad. So, being mad, I challenged the JECFA risk assessments on aspartame, both of which state that consuming aspartame up to the level of 40 mg/kg of body weight is perfectly safe... Continue Reading |
