Codex Adopts Supplement Guideline 35637

Codex Adopts Supplement Guideline

ROMEThe Codex AlimentariusCommission adopted the Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplement Guideline on July 4during its meeting here. Adoption of the draft standard on vitamin and minerallabeling does not replace existing national standards, but can be used as aguideline for countries developing regulations concerning the sale of vitaminand mineral products.

Codex, a joint commission of the World Health Organization(WHO) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), develops foodstandards and guidelines in an effort to promote fair international trade. Thevitamin and mineral guideline has been under development for more than a decade,and has been surrounded by controversy, primarily concerning the establishmentof safety parameters.

In its final form, the guideline requires maximum consumptionlevels for vitamin and mineral supplements be based on safety evaluation throughrisk assessment, rather than recommended daily allowances (RDAs). In addition,the regulation applies only to vitamin and mineral supplements in countrieswhere the products are regulated as foods, not drugs. There are alsorequirements for the safety, purity and bioavailability of the composition andsource of the vitamins and minerals, as well as the packaging and labeling ofsuch products.

The next step will be FAOs development of a risk assessmentmethodology to determine the upper safety levels.